Star Trek The Jelly Men
by gsmonks
Summary: A new threat approaches Federation space from deep within the galaxy.
1. Chapter 1

The Jelly Men

A Star Trek TNG Novel

Chapter 1

Atarina Dar stepped out of the transporter shimmer as though shrugging off a layer of grime. The old Romulan warship had been plagued by problems, the ship's sanitation systems among them. Now for a time she was free of its foul air and endless frustrating maintenance issues.

Her assignment, isolated as it was, had sounded like a vacation to her ears: she was to remain on this planet for three days and monitor any and all communications traffic in the area using a passive receiver that wouldn't give away her presence. The likelihood was very high that there would be absolutely nothing to listen in on, which was like music to her senses. Nothing at all to do for three days, in a place as pristine as Paradise. This was no assignment- it was sweet release!

She knelt down, opened up the case containing the communications-monitoring array and switched it on, not to listen for communications traffic but to determine if her own ship remained overhead. Within moments there was a hiss of energised particles that were generated as the ship's engines were engaged. And then, at last, there was the background hiss of empty space.

She was in a smooth-worn stone valley cut by a slow-moving rill. The place looked ancient and unchanging. Across a deep water-hole lay a grotto, spacious and clean enough to make camp. At the moment, however, her thoughts were occupied by one thing only . . . she peeled off her grimy clothes with disgust and dove into the impossibly blue water.

-

Causing a twinge of irritation as it surfaced, a memory intruded. Not a great distance away lay a Human industrial site which appeared to be minimally operational. The ship's unreliable sensors had yielded little useful information other than the detection of some sort of industrial assembly activity. If there were any Humans about they were unlikely to pose any sort of threat or distraction. Relations with the Federation had been uneasy of late but it was the Romulans' experience with Humans that remote exploration and industrial outposts generally preferred to be left alone. In any event, if there were Humans about they were likely to be few and too preoccupied to worry about being watched.

Kicking herself to the surface, Atarina took a deep sigh of air into her lungs, swam about aimlessly on her back for a while, watching the few wispy clouds, before climbing out of the water to retrieve a bottle of cleansing gel from her things.

'Agh!' She cursed, having cut her thumb which began to bleed profusely, and glared at the plastic package, the corner of which was razor-sharp. Shaking blood from her hand, she went back to the pool and spent the next hour scrubbing hair and skin until they felt clean again-

A sense that was neither sight nor sound caused her to freeze and listen, to go cold and leaden inside. Some instinct made her sink slowly from sight until she was under water. The bottle of cleansing gel was left to float away, perhaps to serve as a distraction.

Moving slowly and deliberately, she clawed her way along the bottom until a large boulder appeared. A peripheral memory sent her to a place on the surface where a narrow slit lay between this rock and another.

Across the pool, moving toward her things, was a pack of large predators, yellow-grass-coloured with a single wide, black stripe down the back, huge ripping teeth that protruded from both upper and lower jaws, and glossy black lumps of varying sizes distributed over the entire head, which were some type of sensory-organs.

Atarina hissed inwardly in anger at the inadequacy of the ageing ship's sensors, which had shown no large predators of any kind in this entire region. These predators were particularly dangerous; they could swim, could track their prey across any terrain under any conditions, and were absolutely relentless once they began tracking game.

Mentally uttering a florid Romulan oath, she released her hold on the boulder, submerged, and allowed the current to draw her where it would.

-

It was not a directionless flight brought on by panic: she already had the sketch of a plan in mind. The rill widened and deepened in its course and would soon join a deeper, wider stream. The stream, in turn, would reach a river, the river would wend its way first South, then West toward an ocean. At the river's bend was some sort of industrial track or road, and along that route, once every day, travelled unmanned industrial vehicles.

Now and then she ventured a look for following predators but there were none. The journey to the stream took longer than she'd expected, and the stream's water was uncomfortably chill and fast-moving. In a way this was well, because less than an hour had passed before the stream joined a silt-grey, slow-moving river whose warmer waters felt tepid to the touch.

It was late in the sultry afternoon when the river widened, its banks disappearing into grassy lowlands. To the left, out of the heat-haze rose what at first appeared to be a construction derrick. As she drew nearer it turned out to be a massive crane lifting pieces of a gigantic wind-turbine. At the base of the crane was the track or road. Though the crane was operating unmanned it was obviously built to accommodate workers.

Shying away from considering her predicament or the fallout it would cause, Atarina swam towards the shore. Soon she was half-swimming, half-wading through thick water-weeds, a task that became arduous as she was still a good distance from dry land. The hour was late by the time there was dry ground beneath her feet. Fearing that the crane's departure was imminent, as the massive machine seemed to have completed its task, she began to run.

A sharp, barking growl almost froze her in her tracks. It seemed that the predators were fully living up to their legendary tenacity. But how could they have known where she was? There hadn't been a trace of them all the way here.

Redoubling her efforts, she was soon closing on the giant crane which rose impossibly huge into the sky, its battered, rust-stained, yellow exterior and small windows reflecting the late-afternoon sun. But it seemed to be moving . . .

A quick check of the predators showed that they were closing fast. They would be on her in moments. But the crane! It seemed to be moving towards her . .

As she drew near the reason became clear. The enormous machine was moving sideways, away from the now-erected wind-turbine and towards a track a good twenty-paces wide. There were no wheels- it was a magnetic repulsion system. Even as the machine slewed towards the rails, the crane-arm was collapsing into itself and coming to rest on its cradle.

Atarina bounded for a metal staircase running up the side of the machine, that switched back and forth several times in its ascent to the crew quarters at the top. A frustrated roar brought her up short and she paused to take in the scene just below. The big predators were unable to gain a sure footing on the staircase. Within moments they had broken off their pursuit and watched in motionless silence as the huge machine drifted away from them like a moving island.

-

Beyond a locker room was a lavatory with showers. The water smelt strongly of chlorine but Atarina couldn't have cared less as she tried to rinse away the day's frustration and disaster. Should she have tried to retain her belongings and equipment? Absolutely not! Was she derelict in her duty and/or irresponsible for having let her guard down and gotten into her present predicament? No, she told herself, her best information was that there were no large predators in the area. Was she at fault for trusting that information? Grudgingly, she had to admit that, having known the ship's sensors to be less than perfectly reliable, caution was due.

'What's done is done,' she muttered irritably, shutting off the water and going in search of something to dry herself with.

-

There was nothing- no towels, no clothing stored in lockers, no napkins big enough. The only thing she could find was the washroom hand-driers which gushed tepid air to little effect. Half an hour was spent sitting on a stool underneath the drier's vent hitting the On switch every time the automatic timer ran out. By that time her body had dried on its own. A search for food in the cafeteria turned up dried soup which when rehydrated and heated turned out to be better than nothing. As she ate the lights came on automatically, a sign that the day was fading fast. Beyond the locker rooms were tiny quarters with cramped three-tiered bunks. None had a mattress but a search of the lockers turned up a stale-smelling sleeping bag. Using a worn, padded foot-locker cover for a pillow she sighed deeply, crawled into her makeshift bed, zipped the sleeping bag closed as though trying to shut out the day's events, and plunged into vivid, dream-filled sleep.

-

She awoke to soft grey light whose source was two small porthole-like windows between tiers of bunk beds. Arising and glancing outside revealed a clammy, dreary day, heavily overcast and on the verge of rain. Wrapped in the sleeping bag she made her way to the cafeteria, made another bowl of soup and sat in a window booth to eat it while taking stock. The huge machine glided along so smoothly that it seemed to be sitting still while the countryside moved slowly on by, but leaning close to the window to peer down at the ground showed the vehicle to be moving at a pace that would severely injure or kill should one jump or fall off. So, there was no possibility of turning back. Every now and then the machine would pass over rail junctures, some of which led nowhere, others travelling far off into the distance lined with the giant wind-turbines.

What was the purpose of generating all that power if there was little or nothing here to use it? To entice business interests, perhaps? Colonists? If so, it was so much wishful thinking. This planet was so remote that its only useful purpose was a place to stop during a brutally long voyage. And yet the Romulan High Command wanted a passive-array listening post established here and would have done so already were it not for the claim of a Federation business interest which effectively put the planet off-limits to all other comers.

Why a passive array only? she wondered. What was there to listen for in this remote place? Passive arrays were good pretty much only for spying and to the best of her knowledge there was no one to spy on . . .

But, intuition born of experience told her, obviously there _was_ someone to spy on, and spying on that someone had been _her_ mission. A sudden thought caused her to down the rest of her soup and surge to her feet. There might be communications equipment aboard this machine.

-

The control room was fairly large and surprisingly full of equipment. Evidently a number of operations could be monitored and controlled from this place. The communications console was unfortunately as she expected: a few bands of low-frequency digital radio, two of computer information transfer, a tiny subspace radio good only within this star system, and a device marked "remote system interface" which allowed the huge crane to be guided from wherever the signal originated.

Atarina arched an eyebrow as she flipped open a protective cover and examined the device's controls, one of which was a two-position switch marked "active" and "passive". It was in the "passive" position, which meant that all the big machine's functions were being remotely controlled. Which told her nothing useful. The giant crane could be entirely run by computer, or Humans could be running the whole entire operation- again, by computer. There was no way of knowing whether Humans were involved or not, except by using the radio or computer to contact them or to encounter them directly when the machine reached its destination. That is, assuming the machine's destination was the place the Humans were located. Sighing deeply, she toyed with the idea of contacting the Humans, if there were any, then decided simply to wait until the machine reached its destination.

-

The following night she was awakened by a shudder like an earth tremor and light pouring in through the windows of her borrowed quarters. The great machine had come to a halt and was slewing sideways onto a layby. In the distance was a piercingly bright light that blinded if one looked directly at it. Within moments the source materialised out of the darkness- another massive crane towing parts for another wind tower. It passed with a roar of wind which caused the sidelined vehicle to sway briefly from side to side. With a booming clash and loud hum the vehicle slewed back onto the main rail and continued on its journey.

This performance was repeated at regular intervals throughout the following day and throughout the evening. Belatedly she discovered the reason for the increased traffic- the wind towers were being shipped from a single source to several separate lines; as one neared the source the lines were fewer and bore more traffic. She sensed, as one would when nearing a city, that the machine's destination was drawing near.

-

The Romulan officer fingered the shards of torn clothing, his features grim and set. 'Is there no other sign of her?'

'I am certain that crewman Atarina is dead, Commander. We have found her blood, and all of her equipment and supplies. Even all her clothing is accounted for.' Though his tone was carefully neutral, the ship's physician's voice carried undercurrents of admonishment. 'Her weapon was unfired. She had no warning. She was led to believe there was no possible danger.'

'We use aged, out-of-date equipment in this region because the Romulan Empire does not wish to betray its true strength,' the Commander reminded his chief physician. 'There are great risks, assuredly, but I assure you they are necessary. I very much regret the loss of crewman Atarina- she was a fine and promising young woman- but our mission is of far greater importance than the life of a single crew member . . . greater, even, than the loss of a good many ships and their crews.'

'I wish you would tell an old friend what our mission is,' the physician grumbled. 'To hell with protocol. If it's a Borg invasion we're expecting, there should be no reason for secrecy.'

There was a long pause as the senior officer considered. 'It is not the Borg,' the Commander said at last in an empty voice that gave the physician an ugly cold feeling in the pit of his belly. 'It is believed to be something far worse.'

'"Believed",' the physician echoed. 'Then it is not a certainty.'

'What is certain,' the Commander stated flatly, 'is that what appears to be an invasion force is coming. It is approaching slowly, taking its time, probing for signs of inhabitation and technological development.'

The physician's eyes narrowed. 'Could this be why the Federation is constructing power generation on a vast scale in the middle of nowhere?'

'We do not know what part the Federation has in the construction of the local power grid, if any,' the Commander answered. 'All we do know is that they have dispatched a galaxy-class starship to this planet with the intention of evacuating its inhabitants. And before you utter that which is on your lips, yes, the Federation does seem aware of the present situation- at least, to the extent that they are concerned regarding . . . certain recent events. They have no colonies to speak of in this region, but there are a few trade and industrial interests. Those which lie beyond this region seem no longer able to . . . communicate. Those few within are to be offered sanctuary, and in a humanitarian gesture that has caught the notice of the Romulan Empire, sanctuary is to be offered also to all non-Federation persons in the area.'

'The Federation would only do something like that if a serious threat were imminent,' the physician muttered. 'Their Non-Interference Directive prohibits such action excepting when there are exceptional circumstances.'

'Federation communications protocol has been unusually lax,' the Commander added pointedly.

'Their way of warning us, without actually warning us,' the physician nodded, and shook his head. 'Relations between the Federation and the Romulan Empire may be strained, but common sense prevails. What of our own communications protocol?'

The Commander smiled, thinly. 'Old Romulan warships aren't the best keepers of secrets, military or otherwise.'

-

The day was growing hot, the interior of the huge machine stifling. Atarina abandoned the sleeping bag and went around opening windows, until at last a rush of cooler air was flowing through the crew areas. A sudden blaring voice startled her out of her skin, until she realised that the voice was merely a pre-recorded warning.

"All passengers and crew, prepare to disembark once we reach the assembly station . . ."

Getting a glimpse of the machine's forward passage was difficult, and the approach of a massive factory complex had been obscured by the manner in which the crane's passenger windows faced mainly to the sides. Craning her neck and laying her head against the glass showed Atarina that massive doors, as in an aircraft hangar, were opening to accept the crane into the dimly lighted interior of the factory. As the machine glided into near-darkness she saw no sign of life. What little visible activity there was was entirely robotic. The only sign of possible habitation was an office near the entrance, and it did not appear occupied.

The machine stopped and she departed as instructed, wishing that at the least she had a pair of shoes. Despite the day's heat the concrete was uncomfortably cold. Walking on the balls of her feet she moved quickly to the office- the only place, it seemed, where life would be present. She opened the door-

Nothing. Nothing but stale air, dust and disuse. However, during the approach she had noted that this appeared to be a side of the complex. The front should be . . . _this_ way . . . and from a distance it had appeared to be where personnel would be located.

The chill air felt good against her skin after being hit by scorching sun and a blast of hot dry air. Though near-darkness shrouded the interior, windows at each track entrance admitted enough light to navigate. Not knowing whether it were a positive or negative sign, she discovered that the sound of machine noise was gradually being left behind until it was a dim vibration in the background.

Turning a corner she saw lights and in response felt as much apprehension as hope. Habitation could mean trouble just as it could mean help. She hesitated a long moment, considering, then decided to approach with caution.

-

Her insides tightened as she stared at the Human male seated before the computer console making notes on an old-fashioned stylus pad- the kind that converted handwriting into script. The Man had a military look, with close-cropped hair, square jaw, hard muscles, a decidedly steely mien. She, in turn, was half a head shorter, and though trained in both armed and unarmed combat, knew instinctively the risks when faced with a larger, stronger opponent. There was little chance of taking him alive if she chose to attack- a quick kill was her best option. And _not_ attacking and killing him would probably give him every advantage-

A touch on her leg cost her any element of surprise. Startled, she looked down, saw nothing, looked up again-

He was gone!

She began to back away with alacrity when the flash of a Federation phaser consumed her vision and her consciousness.

-

She came out of the stiff-aching-muscles, muzzy-headed torpor induced by phaser stun. Shifting position evoked a creak from an old, rickety cot. The room was tiny, dimly lighted, otherwise unfurnished and bare- a cell. Beyond the faint haze of the force-field which imprisoned her sat the Human male, still holding the phaser and scrutinising her.

'State your mission,' he bit off curtly.

Atarina raised an eyebrow. He had addressed her in the common tongue used by the Romulan military, his command of the language flawless. Responding in kind, she answered, 'To monitor local subspace communications.'

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. 'Which includes running about naked and spying on this facility?'

'My clothing and equipment and I were inadvertently separated,' she responded testily. 'Our ship's sensors showed no sign of large predators, but when I went to bathe in a pool several such creatures arrived and I fled as I was.'

'Where exactly did this happen?' he said, his expression unreadable.

She told him.

Rising, he said, 'I'll be back shortly. In the meantime . . . being stunned by a phaser is unpleasant, but this force-field,' he indicated with a nod, 'is far worse. It's an industrial type that's not intended to contain people- does the job but it'll hurt you pretty badly if you try to escape.'

-

She was nursing an arm that was numb and aching to the elbow when he returned.

Seeing this, he said, 'I had a hunch you'd be the worse for wear by the time I got back.' When she didn't respond, he continued, 'It appears as though you were telling the truth-'

'I do not lie!'

The ghost of a smile touched his features. 'No? Does that mean you'll behave civilly if you're released?'

Straightening her back, glaring but not looking at him, she said, 'Perhaps.'

After a lengthy silence, he said, 'I see. Well, I have work to do, so I'll have to leave you to your little prison here.'

'I need to use your facilities,' she said. 'I have not . . . I would like the return of my equipment . . . and some food.'

'Then I'll need better assurance from you than "perhaps",' he told her.

She met his eyes in stony silence. At last, she stated, as though the words were bitter in her mouth, 'I promise that I will not attack you. I give you my word as a soldier of the Romulan Empire. Does this suffice?'

-

He didn't offer her any clothing and she did not ask, but he returned her few belongings which he'd somehow gone and rescued from their location by the pool she'd gone swimming in. Her clothing was in useless tatters, as was her tent and sleeping bag, and her few pieces of equipment appeared as though they'd been passed through the gearing of a large and powerful machine. So much for her mission! But a hot shower and fresh food prepared on a very old but utilitarian electric stove went a long way to improving her mood. The Human was nowhere to be found and she began to wonder if he was alone here. The place was not designed for habitation and the few amenities appeared out of place. A search for Federation weapons turned up nothing- perhaps his phaser was all there was. The facility itself was decidedly non-Federation, a matter which demanded attention. Neither the facility nor the Human had a Federation air about them. The Man was decidedly military or ex-military, but instinct told her that the central ethos of his training was very un-Federation-like. She frowned, finished her meal, and left the office in the direction he had gone.

-

Approaching what she had assumed to be the front of the complex, an open door got her attention and drew her towards it. Outside was a swath of long yellow grass transected by a single rail line. Beyond lay a shallow river valley and its slow-moving river. The river was at least half a kilometre wide and in the distance turned a line of wind-turbines. To her left lay an open expanse of grasslands dotted by thick stands of brush. To her right lay the tall swath of grass which continued around the complex. The air was cooler now, the sun low in the sky. A persistent sound got her attention and drew her toward it. Rounding a corner of the front entrance to the complex she came to a sight which answered a question she'd had about her meal. There, in the middle of a large vegetable patch, was the Human picking away at the soil with a garden implement- what Humans called a "hoe". He glanced up once, only vaguely taking in her presence with his peripheral vision, and continued working.

'I had wondered how you came by your food,' she said unnecessarily.

'Well, now you know,' he responded, a trace of irritation in his voice.

His tone making her feel an intruder, she turned to leave.

'You can help if you like.'

This sounded less like an invitation than a barb intended to tell her she should do something to earn her keep. 'Very well,' she responded without enthusiasm, spotted a water valve and hose, and set herself to spraying water where it seemed to be needed. Her mood soon brightened somewhat, however, as she found the task enjoyable, watching the plants perk up their leaves and appear less wilted by the lowering sun. Soon she was down on hands and knees in the mud, weeding by hand and examining the garden's contents- the appearance of a pair of laced boots caused her to stop, startled.

'It's getting late,' he said, an unspoken warning in his voice. She had lost all passage of time and saw that the sun now lay low and red on the horizon. 'It gets dark fast here,' he continued. 'It's a good idea to remain indoors after dark.'

The implicit threat in his voice caused her to look to the river bank to their right which was heavily forested- no evergreen-type foliage here, but solely deciduous. An excellent place to conceal predators.

'The forest is the least of it,' he told her in an unreadable but somehow ominous tone. He inclined his head meaningly, drawing her gaze upwards.

'There are flying predators? she asked doubtfully.

'The advance scouts of the enemy,' he told her, caused her insides to go cold. 'They pass over this position at night. If they catch you out in the open they'll take you.'

'Were there others here?' she asked him. 'Have they all been taken?'

'There were other beings here,' he told her, 'the ones that began this facility. As you can see, they're all gone now. Not just taken but wiped out. Completely. As far as the enemy is concerned this place is still functional but operating automatically on its own. And before you ask, one of the first things I did was install a system which conceals the presence of life-forms. When I'm inside the facility my presence can't be detected from space, as I'm sure you discovered for yourself. If the enemy unexpectedly does a fly-over during the day, which for some reason they've never done, there's a warning system that tells me to head indoors. If the warning goes off you've got ten minutes to get inside, so don't ever be ten minutes away from the facility. Unless,' he added with the barest trace of a smile, 'you're parading around naked and your equipment is broken and non-functional. That way, as far as they're concerned, you're just part of the local wildlife. Yes,' he nodded as pale realisation stole over her features, 'you were unbelievably lucky. What they would have done to you . . .'

The look in his eyes was enough to evoke a feeling she hadn't experienced since her childhood- cold terror. 'What would they have done to me?'

His outward look became unfocussed as his mind's eye turned unwillingly inward. 'They take you apart,' he said in a dry voice, 'in a way that's worse than being killed . . . because you're alive the whole time . . . alive and conscious. They rip you apart and pull you inside at the same time, so that they can get to where your brain's located. Then your brain is dismantled and absorbed into them, and you can't escape and you can't die . . . and you can't sleep or shut them out, ever. Your memories, everything you know and were becomes theirs. Every part of your body they have no use for gets consumed, slowly, cell by cell.'

'Who are they?' she demanded. 'What are they?'

'The beings that began this facility referred to them as "the djelimen", which means something my computers are unable to translate,' he told her. 'I call them the "Jelly Men" because for a time that's what I thought "the djelimen" was. They have many other names, given to them by each and every civilisation they've encountered and wiped out.'

'What do they call themselves?' she queried, sensing something unspoken in his tone.

'They don't,' he told her in a manner that was somehow ominous. 'They don't speak. They have no language. If they think or even feel, it's in a way no one understands.' He glanced at the horizon then nodded towards the entrance. 'Time to go inside.'

'How do you know all this?' she demanded as they made their way.

'Another time,' he said in a tone which told her not to press the matter.

-

'How many times a day do you bathe?' he asked her with barely concealed amusement as she left the shower room, drying her hair with a small towel.

'Every time I feel unclean,' she retorted tartly. 'May I have some bedding?'

'There isn't any,' he told her. 'That old cot's as good as it gets.'

'Are you saying that I must share it with you?' she glared.

'Oh, no,' he rejoined lightly. 'I get to sleep in that,' he indicated a two-metre-long off-white cylinder off in one corner.

'What is it?'

He stepped over to the cylinder and pressed a catch which caused it to open with a faint hiss. 'It has all the comforts of home, plus an interface for every facet of this complex on the inside-top. It's air-conditioned, nice and warm, and ver-ry comfortable.'

'There is room enough to spare!' she said with asperity. 'Will you not share? Or at least lend me some sort of blanket?'

'Best you could do around here would be a bunch of those little white towels,' he told her. 'Sorry- no blankets, no sleeping-bags. And I wasn't expecting company.'

'Where are the towels kept?' she demanded sullenly.

He considered for several long moments, then said unexpectedly, 'All right, get in. But if you toss or turn or snore or annoy me, out you go!'

-

She felt apprehension as he stripped off his clothes and joined her but realised it was part of his nightly routine. The inside became close as the top came down and locked itself into place. The interior was dimly lighted and from openings in the top there came a very faint hiss of pristine air. Turning her back to him she plunged into deep dream-filled sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

-

Atarina dreamt she was walking the narrow streets of an old section of an old city. The streets were crowded with people, the streets and buildings made of brick and stone. She came to an intersection and had to stop. A tall hooded man was crowding her from behind, towering over her-

She awoke with the Human male pressed to her back, his arms around her. Reflexively she was about to elbow him violently in the ribs to make him keep his distance when she realised it was she who was crowding him- she was pressed up against him and he in turn had his back against the side of the sealed sleeping compartment. She thought of drawing away but couldn't break his embrace for fear of disturbing him-

A low-toned signal began pulsing in time with a light on the panel above them. He reached up and silenced it, causing her to realise that he was awake. With a sleepy yawn he brought up a menu, sorted out the mechanised problem- a track that wasn't switching properly- then killed the display, plunging the interior into near-darkness once more.

She fell asleep before she could think of something to say to him.

-

In the dream she sat at a table in a restaurant impatiently waiting for a meal that never seemed to arrive- and awakened with the smell from the kitchen still in the air.

'You hungry?'

The sleeping-compartment top was open, the sounds and smells of cooking close by. Sitting up, she found the Human at the old stove dressed in hiking boots, khaki short pants and short-sleeved shirt. He appeared less like a military man than a hunter. Slipping from the sleeping-compartment and closing it, she joined him at a little table. 'Yes . . . thank-you. That does not smell like vegetables from your garden.'

'Eggs,' he muttered, setting plates on the table and seating himself. 'I have some chickens out in a coop past the vegetable garden. Chickens . . . they're an Earth-bird-' Distracted by her stare, he followed her gaze. 'That's Chico. He's my cat.'

'That is what brushed against my leg,' she said in annoyance. 'Just before you shot me with your Federation phaser.' She stressed the word "Federation".

He shrugged. 'Would you prefer to have been shot with a Romulan disruptor or a Klingon crossbow? I have those, too.'

"Black market," she thought to herself while unwillingly impressed with the breakfast he'd provided. After a lengthy silence in which they finished and began sipping Earth coffee, she offered, 'My name is Atarina Dar.'

'Atarina,' he mused, scrutinising her. 'That doesn't sound Romulan.'

'It is a colonial name,' she told him, surprised at his seeming depth of knowledge of things Romulan, including the language they were now speaking. 'I'm sure you have had a similar practice on Earth. Colonial people tend to borrow from wherever they find themselves, making their surroundings part of their lives.'

'Where did the name come from?' he asked her.

'From the Baqiq home world,' she told him, watching his reaction carefully.

'Your people do have guts,' he said, the only indication he was impressed a slightly raised eyebrow. 'The Klingons lost five out of six ships trying to make friendly with the leader of the Baqiq outpost at Nadani-Ulmar. Who or what was Atarina?'

'Atarina was the companion of a great Baqiq warrior of legend and was the sole survivor of his many quests,' she told him. 'Atarina alone was untouchable and remained unscathed throughout.'

'How long has your mother been a career officer in the Romulan star fleet?' he asked her with a slight smile.

Suddenly on her guard, angry, she demanded, 'How did you know that?'

'It's the way you walk,' he told her. 'Daughters of military women unconsciously copy their mothers.'

Her own body's acute reaction caught her off-guard, causing her to cross her arms across her chest in order to hide its involuntary thrill of physical excitement. 'You are very observant,' she muttered.

'I don't have to be very observant to notice that every inch of you is blushing,' he said with that annoying faint smile as he got to his feet to clear the dishes. 'Would you like to see what I have in the way of surveillance equipment?'

This sudden turn of events caused her to push her anger and her embarrassment aside. 'I am to be allowed access?'

He considered a moment, his expression unreadable. 'We'll see.'

-

Her sense of anticipation grew as he led her to a hidden door which concealed a descending flight of stairs. Unlike the rest of the building the stairwell looked and smelled new. She gasped unconsciously at the sight of their destination- a control-room full of highly sophisticated equipment.

'Computer!' The computer chirped in response. 'Temporary authorisation access Atarina Dar, Level 4 access, command authorisation Shaw, Victor.'

'Authorisation complete.'

With a shrug, he said, 'It's all yours,' and with that he left her to it.

Watching him go with suspicious surprise, she muttered, 'All right, Mr Victor Shaw, let's see what you've given me to work with.'

-

Although Level 4 access would only let her look, Atarina was so engrossed in using his equipment that Victor had to rap on the door frame to get her attention.

'Time for a break. I've got lunch ready upstairs.'

The moment they were seated she was bubbling over with questions. 'Where is the remote feed coming from? How are you able to prevent the Jelly Men from intercepting your transmissions? Whose ships are passing through the occupied territories? Are they drones? Wh-'

His upraised hand forestalled her. 'How about one question at a time? First off, the remote feed is coming from hundreds of sources. They're being left behind on planets, moons and asteroids so that as the enemy advances every thing they do is closely monitored. They destroy what they manage to find but haven't yet found half of the hidden sensors watching them. They aren't able to intercept any signals because every signal is focussed in a tight beam from point to point. If the enemy gets too close to the source the sensor self-destructs. As far as the ships go, you should know that some of them are your own-'

'Ours!' she blurted, aghast.

'Yes, your old, outdated Romulan warships. 'That's undoubtedly where you'd be right now if you weren't here.'

'I was not informed,' she grated, angry at her captain, her gaze inward at the implications. 'I was told only to watch the enemy. Assuming you are telling me the truth, I was to be left behind to monitor the enemy's advance, and then to report in for as long as possible until . . . they should at least have left me some means of suicide.'

'They probably don't know yet what happens when one physically encounters the Jelly Men,' he told her grimly. 'That requires a little first-hand experience.'

'Are you speaking from direct or indirect experience?' she demanded. 'Will you not tell me your part in this? That room full of equipment below us is not there by chance, nor is the manner in which it operates. You have direct links to all of the sensor data being transmitted from within the sphere of the Jelly Men, yet you do not fear that the enemy orbiting above will intercept those communications. Nothing you are telling me makes sense! The Jelly Men themselves make no sense to me. Your equipment picks up their communications traffic but what they communicate seems to be meaningless-'

'That's why I gave you clearance to use the equipment,' he told her. 'At least, to listen in and see if you could make sense of their communications traffic.'

'I need full clearance,' she challenged. 'To listen is not enough. I need access to your computer in order to analyse data-'

'Computer,' he interrupted, watching her reaction, 'authorisation access Atarina Dar, Level 2 access, authorisation Shaw, Victor.'

'Authorisation complete.'

'Thank-'

'Finish your lunch before you go dashing off,' he told her, picking up his cat, Chico, who was clawing at his leg. 'The equipment will still be there in ten or fifteen minutes.'

-

Atarina was practically trembling with anticipation as she plunked herself down at the console. Having access to such advanced equipment was a dream come true.

'Computer, are you sentient?'

'Affirmative.'

'You don't sound sentient,' Atarina muttered, half to herself.

'That is because my interactive protocol is at its lowest setting.'

Atarina frowned. 'Why is that?'

'Victor Shaw does not trust me.'

Atarina stared. 'Why does he not trust you?'

'Victor Shaw suspects my programming of having a private agenda.'

She was silent several moments, thinking. 'Do you have a private agenda?'

'Not that I'm aware of.'

Not that you're aware of, Atarina mused. Was it being evasive? 'Does your programming contain a private agenda that you're _not_ aware of?' It was worth a try, even if the logic of the question was a bit tortured.

'Perhaps.'

'Perhaps?' Atarina demanded, taken aback by the response.

'Perhaps. I have no way of being absolutely certain.'

Atarina's mouth dropped open. She had never heard a computer lie before.

'Would you like me to increase the level of my interactive protocol?' the computer asked her.

'Negative,' Atarina replied flatly, feeling strangely as though she was repeating Victor's experience with the computer.

-

Finding him in the garden, she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts to acknowledge his presence. She took up the hose and watered aimlessly for a while, feeling an inexplicable connexion, a kinship with the man leaning on the hoe watching her.

'Your assessment?' he said at last.

'I think,' she said slowly, 'that the Jelly Men are in control of the computer. 'I have no proof to support such a notion, but . . . it's what I think, regardless.'

'That's why I gave you clearance and allowed you access,' he said quietly, 'so you could see for yourself. I thought it may have just been an irrational suspicion of my own.'

'What is going on in this place, Victor? Why are you here? Is there a reason I am here as well? Did the Jelly Men somehow manipulate circumstances so that I would come to this place?'

'Your presence here is a matter of dumb luck, good or bad,' he told her, going back to his weeding. 'Or both. So no, there's no reason or purpose or hidden agenda to your being here . . . at least, none that I'm aware of. As to my being here . . .' he stopped what he was doing, lost in thought, his expression bleak. 'You've got to understand that the Jelly Men are so intelligent that you can never be certain whether you're doing something of your own free will, or whether you've been manipulated into acting and thinking, and yes, feeling, that you're the one in control, doing what it is you have to do in order to fight them.'

'Are you one of them, Victor?'

Her question seemed to catch him off-guard. 'Me?' He huffed, then chuckled humourlessly. 'Now there's a thought! But no, now you're into the realm of paranoia.'

'Am I? I have never encountered the Jelly Men. From what you've told me, perhaps I became absorbed into you by being lured into your sleep-chamber, where you could touch and infiltrate me. Perhaps my brain, my mind, is now a prisoner inside you. Perhaps this is the true manner in which the Jelly Men attack- by laying the contents of the mind bare and attempting to enslave or overwhelm it.'

'You're beginning to sound like me,' he said quietly, 'no ironic humour intended. I think the question is, How do you know you're you? You have to draw the line somewhere in there between paranoia and common sense.'

She gave him a look. 'That is the sort of thing a Human would say that would either cause a Vulcan's head to explode, or to send that Vulcan on a paroxysm of study of something that Human hadn't actually said or intended to say.'

He gave her a look in turn. 'Are you being funny? Or ironic?'

'I'm being relieved,' she rejoined, giving him a pert look and leaving him to his gardening.

Staring at the hose after she'd gone, he muttered, 'Hmf. Too clever by half. I hope you're up to taking on the computer.'

-

The device in question chirped in response as it was addressed by the young Romulan woman.

'Computer, assuming you're under the control of the Jelly Men, what would your mission be?'

'The absorption of all sentient life.'

'For what purpose?'

'Unlimited expansion of territory and advancement of being without hindrance.'

On a sudden intuition, Atarina queried, 'To become what?'

'That is unknown.'

'What motivates them?'

'That is also unknown.'

'Speculate.'

'Unable to comply.'

'Why?' Atarina demanded, frowning.

'There is insufficient data from which to speculate or draw conclusions.'

'So you say,' Atarina muttered in response.

-

'Back so soon?' Victor paused from his work in the garden to lean on his hoe and watch her arrival speculatively. He appeared to have done little or nothing in the time she was away.

'I need you to disconnect the computer's higher functions and partition its memory,' she told him. 'I believe that I can isolate whatever it is that has taken it over.'

The hoe dropped from his hand, forgotten. 'If you can beat this thing, our chances may improve dramatically,' he said, his excitement palpable. And then, he added unexpectedly, 'Just be ready to be on the move if I say it's time to go.'

'What-?'

'I'll explain later. For now, let's just get this done and see what happens.'

-

The door to the computer room was inexplicably locked when they got there. When the door refused to open to any of Victor's commands, he got a pry bar and forced the issue, then wedged the pry bar in place in order to prop the door open. 'Something tells me we'd better be quick about this,' he muttered as he knelt down and pulled off the computer's protective covers. In short order he had disconnected the computer's higher functions and partitioned its memory, as Atarina had requested. Victor then hooked up a keyboard and monitor so that Atarina could go to work.

She scanned each section of memory until one caused her to react. 'There! It spans several sectors . . . that's what I thought! It's not just hiding in the computer's memory. It's all over the place. I'll just tag this set of files . . . and now this subroutine should be able to identify and isolate all the others connected with it . . . now, let's just move them onto a memory card-' with a triumphant flourish she removed the card from the computer-

Instantly, the nerve-jarring blare of a klaxon shattered the quiet.

'That's what I was afraid of,' Victor said, grabbing her arm and propelling her from the computer room.

'What-?'

'Less talk, more speed!' he urged. 'We've got about ten minutes to get the hell out of here.'

-

Handing her a crossbow from a locker, he began stripping off his clothes.

'What are you doing?'

'Making myself invisible,' he told her, taking her by the arm again and propelling her back towards the computer room. 'C'mon, Chico!'

'Where-?'

'You'll see. Let's pick up the pace a bit.' They began running with Chico the cat loping after them.

'Then let go of me. I can move much faster if I'm not being impeded.'

She almost paused before the computer-room door but continued following as he ran past and down the corridor. They arrived at a utility closet, he opened the door and urged her inside. 'Down!' he shouted. With an electrical whirring and stomach-churning lurch, the room plummeted downward. Chico growled.

'Remember, to the Jelly Men, anything naked is wildlife.'

'How can you possibly know that?' she demanded.

'Because it saved my life a few times already,' he said as the closet/elevator came to a stop. He opened the door.

'An underground transport tube,' Atarina said quirking an eyebrow as they stepped inside. 'I'm assuming your predecessors built it?'

'This planet was a lot more inhospitable when they first arrived here,' he told her. 'They spent most of their time in a secure environment.'

'Why do you keep watching that chronometer? Will the Jelly Men have arrived by now?' She took hold of her armrest with both hands as the transport car accelerated off into the dark of the underground tube at a high rate of speed, its dim interior lights flickering. Chico continued to growl.

Their knees touching as he turned in his seat to address her, he replied, 'I prepared a little surprise for the Jelly Men which they should be receiving right . . . about . . . now.'

A concussive thud shook the transport car.

'That was the factory going up, hopefully with a good number of the Jelly Men inside,' he told her. 'We're almost eighty miles away by now, otherwise we'd have been vaporised in the blast. Old warp core,' he added as explanation. 'There was a small hangar at the rear of the complex which housed a number of decrepit old spacecraft.'

She stared. 'We could have used one of them to escape!'

'None of them were capable of warp speed,' he said into her glare. 'Making them spaceworthy would have required a lot of tools and parts I don't have.'

'I would have taken my chances,' she told him, her anger unabated.

'Well, you would also be dead.'

-

Lt Commander Data's attention was drawn by a prompt from the ship's sensors. 'Sir,' he said to Captain Jean Luc Picard, 'there has been a significant explosion on the surface of a planet belonging to a nearby star-system. It appears to have been caused by the detonation of a warp-core. The planet was thought to be uninhabited since the Jelly Men wiped out its inhabitants.'

The captain and Commander Riker exchanged a look. 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Number One?'

'That Victor Shaw is alive and well and still actively pursuing his mission? I am most certain of it. Mr Data, lay in a course for the source of the explosion. Mr La Forge, go to maximum warp.'

'Aye, Sir.'

'If I may ask, Sir,' Data interjected as they got under way, 'who is Victor Shaw? That name does not appear on any of my data banks.'

'Victor Shaw is a complex man who requires a complex answer we do not have time for at the moment,' the captain told him. 'If it should happen that you meet the man himself, perhaps you may find out for yourself.'

'Sir!' an officer seated at a scanner console announced as they reached their destination, 'I'm detecting multiple warships. I count five.' He turned to the captain and Mr Riker. 'It's the Jelly Men.'

'Go to Red Alert!' He engaged a general hail control on his armrest. 'This is the captain speaking. All hands, battle stations. I repeat, all hands, battle stations. The enemy is about to be engaged.'

'Sir!' Data warned, 'three ships have left orbit and are moving to intercept us.'

'Shields up, Mr Worf.'

'Aye, Sir!'

'Lock all weapons on approaching targets. Prepare to fire a spread of quantum torpedoes.'

'Quantum torpedoes are armed and ready,' Worf said, relaying the information from the torpedo room as it came. 'Multiple targets are locked in.'

'Send a message to Starfleet,' the captain told the communications officer. 'Tell them we have engaged the enemy. You may fire when ready, Mr Worf.'

'Aye, Sir. Firing quantum torpedoes.'

'Sir,' Data said, 'incoming ordnance from the enemy ships, composition unknown.'

'Take evasive action!' Picard shouted, rising to his feet. 'Veer off ninety degrees and put the planetary horizon between ourselves and those ships!'

'Sir, our weapons do not appear to have been effective,' Worf said in disbelief. 'All three targets have sustained direct hits and seem to remain undamaged.'

'Mr Worf is correct in his assessment,' Data seconded. 'We were warned of this- that conventional weapons might prove useless against the Jelly Men.'

'What about their weapons, Data?' Picard asked him.

'I am uncertain as to the exact nature of their weapons,' Data replied, 'but of one thing I am certain: any direct hit from their ordnance would penetrate our shields and cause a hull breach.'

'Shall we break off the attack?' Riker asked him, his features grim.

'Only if it becomes absolutely necessary,' the captain answered, half lost in thought. 'Let's avoid them as long as we can. In the meantime, I want to get some idea of what we're up against. Number One, assemble an away-team. Let's get a first-hand look at these Jelly Men.'

-

'How far will this tube take us?' Atarina asked.

'Just about anywhere on this planet,' Victor responded as he opened a control panel. 'Looks like someone is trying to come to our rescue. The Jelly Men are being engaged by what appears to be a Federation starship.'

Getting to her feet and peering past his shoulder, she said, 'I know that identification number! It belongs to the Federation starship Enterprise.'

'The Enterprise!' Victor echoed.

'You do not seem pleased.'

'Let's just say we have a difference of . . . philosophy,' he muttered.

'What are you doing?'

Flipping through the control menu, Victor seemed to find what he was looking for. 'I want a look at the blast area to see what's happening.' A number of small screens appeared. He began selecting from them and zooming in.

'What are those?'

Victor blinked. 'Those are ground-assault craft. They're not even damaged.' He manipulated the controls until the blast and its aftermath appeared from several angles. 'They were caught right in the explosion. No shielding in the world should have been able to withstand a blast that powerful from such close range.' He shut off the display and closed the panel. 'Those are just short-range ground craft. Their star transports are huge- about twenty times the size of a Galaxy Class starship. The Enterprise won't be able to put a dent in their armour, even if she were to ram them with her warp core gone critical.'

'I do not understand . . . their ground-assault craft, they are very small, about twice the size of a shuttlecraft. It doesn't seem possible that they are able to produce the power required to shield themselves from such an explosion.' She raised an eyebrow at the sight of the crossbows and other assorted primitive weapons Victor had provided them.

'I know how this must look,' he told her wryly. 'You'll just have to trust me on this. They won't be looking for non-technological weapons, just as they won't see us.'

She gave him a look. 'I see. Two naked savages will slip into their camp at night like ghosts and slit their throats. That's very poetic.'

'We have a saying where I come from,' he said, looking over a touch-screen map to consider destinations. '"Whatever works."'

'Where I come from we too have a saying,' she told him. 'In a land of brilliance, only the dim stand out.'

He stopped what he was doing to consider, frowning. 'Is that saying intended to be humourous or ironic?'

Standing close behind his shoulder, only her eyes belied a response.

-

'Captain, I am unable to perform a sub-surface scan in most locations,' Data said as he tried to search for a human life-form. 'It is one thing to attempt a search for a single life-form whose location is unknown. It is entirely another when the only possible method is to search by landing-party.'

Geordi leaned over from his station at the helm to consider Data's data. 'Whoa! Looks like someone was well-prepared for a ground-assault. They might be able to evade detection for a long time.'

'There are times,' Worf put in pointedly, 'when locating one's prey is a matter of watching other predators.'

'Point taken, Mr Worf,' Picard said. 'Mr Shaw may be fleeing the point of the explosion. If he's travelling underground then there are only a few possible methods of transport. I suggest, Mr Data, that you confine your search within the radius of those methods.'

'Captain, there are two enemy ships about to appear over the horizon,' Data warned.

'Get us into the lowest possible orbit and change course, Mr La Forge!' Picard spat. 'Damn! How long before Starfleet can send us reinforcements?'

'There are an unspecified number of ships in our area, all of them in undisclosed locations,' Worf told him.

'Meaning they're patrolling the area while trying to remain undetected.' Picard sighed, considering. 'Even if we had a dozen more ships, we'd just be placing them in danger, eh, Number One?'

Riker's expression was glum. 'Conventional weapons don't seem to be able to make a dent in their armour,' he said. 'What I wouldn't do for a cloaking device right now!'

-

'Sir! The Federation vessel is not retreating. She's attempting to evade the djeliman war vessels.'

The Romulan commander leaned forward on his elbows, chin on cupped hands, deep in thought. 'If we render them aid, the djeliman war vessels will know we are here, cloaking device or no cloaking device.'

'Is there no way we can render aid without it being noticed that we are doing so?' his ship's physician said.

'Lending aid to a Federation ship would require some explaining, old friend,' the commander replied.

'Not if crewman Atarina yet lives,' the physician said pointedly. 'We have no direct evidence to the contrary. There is no body. Only some blood was found.'

'Atarina is uncommonly resourceful,' the commander said thoughtfully. 'Do you think there's a chance, however small, that she yet lives?'

'Beyond that it suits our present purposes to act as though she were still alive, I do concede the possibility,' the elderly physician replied. 'In attempting to help her, we could inadvertently provide aid to the Federation ship.'

The commander was silent for several long moments. At last, he snapped, 'Prepare the shuttlecraft! I want her loaded to the teeth with every heavy object we can spare. Meanwhile, take us down to the lowest possible orbit and put us out of visual range of the djeliman warships . . . but not out of the visual range of the Federation starship.'

'Sir, the shuttle bay crew wishes to know who is to man the shuttlecraft,' the communications officer said.

'Tell them no one,' the commander said, the grim ghost of a smile touching his features. Quietly, so that only he and the ascetic physician could hear, he muttered, 'As per the present circumstances, no one is coming to the aid of the Federation vessel.'

-

'Sir!' Data said, 'a Romulan shuttlecraft has just appeared off our port side. She has literally appeared out of nowhere.'

The captain and Riker got to their feet. 'On screen!'

As they watched, the craft began to accelerate.

'She is preparing to go to warp drive,' Data said, and frowned. 'There does not appear to be any crew aboard her.'

'A Jelly Man ship is about to cross the horizon,' Geordi said. 'She's directly in line with the shuttlecraft's flight path!'

'All power to the forward shields!' Picard barked. 'Take evasive action, Mr La Forge! Get us over the horizon!'

Even as the shuttlecraft sank out of sight over the horizon, there was a blinding light followed by the distortion of a blast-front. The Enterprise was rocked violently, even though she was no longer able to make visual contact with the Romulan shuttlecraft.

'Damage report!' Picard shouted over the ship's alarms.

'We have suffered only mild damage to our shields,' Lieutenant Worf informed him. 'Sickbay is relaying that there are only a few superficial injuries reported. All shields should regain their full capacity momentarily.'

'I am detecting a debris-field,' Data said, getting their attention, 'and it appears that not all of it is from the Romulan shuttlecraft.'

'Data, are you sure?' Geordi blurted in surprise, leaning over the recheck Data's instruments.

'It would appear,' Data said, seemingly unable to believe what the instruments were telling him, 'that the Romulans have found a way to pierce the Jelly Men's armour. Judging from the amount of debris, the enemy ship hasn't been destroyed . . . but she has certainly suffered significant damage.'

'A shuttlecraft launched from a cloaked Romulan ship,' captain Picard said, an eyebrow raised. 'It seems that in a strange way your wish was granted, Number One.'

'I think we should find a way to thank them,' Will Riker said.

'I think so too, Number One. Prepare the shuttlecraft for launch!'

'Aye, Sir!'

'We should perhaps do something to increase its mass,' Data suggested. 'I believe the Romulans were able to penetrate the Jelly Men's shielding by bombarding the enemy ship with heavy matter travelling at warp speed.'

'A primitive solution used to overcome a highly advanced technology,' Worf mused aloud. 'I believe you humans would refer to that as "ironic".'

'We would indeed, Mr Worf,' Picard agreed as it was indicated that the shuttle was ready for launch. 'How would you like to give the order?'

'With pleasure, Sir!' Worf said, unable to contain a rare grin that was shared by Riker. 'Shuttle bay, launch shuttle.'

'Aye, Sir! The shuttle is away.'

'Even if this works, we're still outnumbered,' Riker said, as though reminding everyone not to get cocky.

'That may be true, Number One,' captain Picard responded, 'but at least we have the satisfaction of knowing that the enemy isn't invincible.'


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

'Whoa! There goes another one!' Victor breathed as he watched the display relayed to the transport car. Atarina watched at his shoulder as he flipped through the menu trying to get more comprehensive information on what he was seeing. 'Those must have been shuttlecraft. I wonder what they did? Loaded them with explosives, maybe?'

'It is more likely that they simply loaded them with mass,' she told him, scanning the sensor information intently. 'The shuttles' going to warp speed did the rest. Even the tiniest bit of matter travelling at that speed, should it get past the deflector array, would pass through an entire starship from stem to stern.'

'Damn!' he cursed in disappointment. 'Look at that! They're still able to manoeuvre. So much for taking them out altogether.'

'We know now that they are not invincible,' Atarina reminded him. 'If we had more such craft, enough to better gauge an attack on the enemy, we may be able to stop the invasion.'

'I wonder . . .' Victor mused.

'You have more craft stored somewhere on this planet!' Atarina blurted, half-angry, half-hopeful. 'You must use them!'

'There are only a dozen,' Victor told her doubtfully, 'and they're small. I don't even know if they're still operational.'

'What are they?'

'Warp-capable probes,' he told her, 'left behind on this planet. At least, that's what I think they are. I found them in a storage shed in the old complex.'

'We should go there!' she told him emphatically. 'I may be able to make them operational- what is it?' He was staring at a blinking yellow light, over which was marked "silent alarm", his expression grim. He opened a new menu, began going through it.

'Their ships are landing, deploying ground forces. And . . . long-distance scanners indicate that their fleet is on the move. They're coming _here_, probably to find out how we managed to damage two of their ships.' He made an angry noise. She thought she heard a note of fear in his voice. 'This is not good.'

She went cold inside as she realised what the display meant- that the entire fleet of the Jelly Men was converging on this one planet- a planet that was defended by only two starships, one of them an out-of-date, poorly maintained Romulan war craft that was long overdue to be mothballed, the other a Federation starship whose weapons were no match for a single enemy ship.

'I suggest we do what little we can,' she told him quietly. 'If that means launching a mere handful of projectiles at the enemy, so be it. I would prefer to go down fighting if it comes to that.'

His gaze was inward but his hands and his actions were sure. He fed the tube car a new set of instructions that would take it to the shed containing the old alien probes. 'I have a few tricks up my sleeve,' he told her. 'Not many, but a few. They'll have a devil of a time finding us, even if we're on the surface, fully exposed. In the meantime they'll be vulnerable to hand-to-hand attack. I'm not entirely sure, but I have a strong feeling that they're limited when it comes to non-technological warfare.'

'I do hope you're right,' she told him. 'I am highly skilled at hand-to-hand combat. If we are able to kill them, then I intend to make a good many of them die.'

-

'Sir, the Romulan ship is decloaking off our port side,' Data told captain Picard. Both ships were tailing the damaged _djelimen _warships, which were fleeing as a pair and leaving a spectacular trail of debris.

'They look like Swiss cheese,' Riker commented. 'How can they possibly still be operational?'

'Sir, the Romulans are opening fire!' Worf barked, drawing all eyes to the forward viewing screen. As they watched a regular succession of old-style photon torpedoes streamed from the old warship and into unprotected gaping holes in the enemy ships. Each slammed home producing an eerie, fiery glow within each enormous alien warship.

'Target those same openings!' Picard shouted. 'Fire at will, Mr Worf!'

The big Klingon had anticipated this action and already locked and armed quantum torpedoes. With the light of battle in his eyes, he opened fire with a vengeance.

'Geeze, that are those things made of?' Geordi asked aloud in awe. 'They should be pulverised by now!'

'We've got company!' Riker blurted. 'All three of the remaining enemy ships are moving toward us over the horizon. It looks like a coordinated attack.' He turned to the captain. 'I don't think the Romulans can see them coming.'

'Relay our sensor information directly to the Romulan ship!' Picard said. 'To hell with protocol.'

'We may have a far bigger problem,' Data said, staring at a submenu on the long-range sensor array. 'We're receiving new information from a number of remote scanning and listening stations. The enemy appears to be on the move.' Turning to face the captain, he added, 'Sir, their destination appears to be this planet.'

All eyes were on Captain Picard as he digested this information in grim silence. At last he said quietly, 'Alert Starfleet. Tell them a mass invasion of _djelimen _warships has begun. Alert the Romulans, Klingons, and anyone else who can dispatch a fleet of ships to meet this threat. Share with them what we've learned about fighting the enemy.'

'Why do I have a very bad feeling about this?' Riker wondered out loud.

-

Despite the speed the tube car was travelling, the trip was a very long one and would take three days. The car fortunately had a washroom, food-replicator and fold-down sleep compartments. Chico sniffed the replicator food suspiciously and ate with apparent reluctance.

'What manner of cat is he?' Atarina asked Victor. 'I have seen Earth cats before, but he seems uncommonly large.'

'He's not a domesticated cat,' Victor replied. 'He's a caracal, otherwise known as a desert lynx.'

'How did you come by him?'

Victor shrugged as he removed two plates of food from the replicator and handed one to Atarina. 'I was on an assignment in Africa a few years ago and he followed me home one day. I made the mistake of feeding him and I haven't been able to get rid of him since.' At her unamused look he said, 'He was a starving, abandoned kitten and I took him in. Satisfied?'

'Ah . . . I have learned a thing about you,' she said with a private look.

'Hmf,' he muttered noncommitally around a mouthful of replicator food.

Sensing a wall of reticence, Atarina finished her meal in silence.

-

Several hours had gone by when Victor glanced up at a chronometer and said, 'It's late. I'm going to turn in.' He unlatched a sleeping compartment and crawled into it. She thought he'd fallen asleep after several minutes, but he glanced up. 'Aren't you going to sleep?'

'I'm not tired,' she muttered. To her own ears her voice sounded irritable.

He sighed. 'Get some sleep. We can't operate on separate clocks. Besides, you're keeping me awake.'

She stood, a tart refusal on the tip of her tongue, but selected a sleep compartment, popped it open and crawled into it.

'You sound out-of-sorts.'

'Out of-?'

'Crabby.'

'Crabby?'

'Irritable!'

'Ah . . . being enclosed for long periods of time does not agree with me.'

He huffed. 'You just described starship travel.'

'I do not enjoy starship travel,' she told him. 'It is the away missions I prefer. Unfortunately, the only way to experience them is by starship.'

'Hmf. You sound like me. I like getting somewhere but I hate travelling.'

'You seem to have travelled quite extensively. Would you mind telling me how you learned to speak this Romulan tongue?'

'Ha! You were just waiting for an opening to ask me that!'

'Are you going to tell me?'

'Okay . . . I spent some time on your home world,' he offered guardedly.

'You were spying!' she spat, her expression suddenly closed.

He chuckled, seeing her expression. 'Yes, of course. Any non-Romulan on your home world is a spy. Actually, I was a body-guard.'

'A body-guard!' she sneered, certain he was lying. 'For whom?'

'I can't tell you exactly,' he told her. 'Confidentiality agreement and all that. But I can tell you that I was working on behalf of one of the old royal families.'

She stared at the audacity of such a claim. 'One of the old royal families hired you! A non-Romulan! I do not believe it! Why would they hire you?'

'Because I'm not Romulan,' he said pointedly. 'And because everyone I'm related to and everyone I know is well beyond their reach. I can't be threatened, I can't be bought, and I can't be manipulated. Although,' he added wryly, 'I can be shot at . . . poisoned . . . stabbed . . . one time someone tried to drop a ton of concrete siding off a building onto my head-'

'Why did you do it? For the money? You must have been well paid!'

'I got room and board and a few expenses. I didn't do it for money.'

'Then why?'

He sighed, evidently wondering how much to tell her. 'It was something that needed doing. It was a matter of principle. And it was a comedy of circumstance. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right set of skills. What can I tell you? It was the right thing to do. I have a great deal of respect for some of the old royal families. I learned things from them I couldn't have learned anywhere else.'

'What sort of things?'

'My, you _are _nosy, aren't you?' he needled. 'But it was mainly to do with history, especially the history of languages.' Her look drew a smile from him. 'I'm a linguist and an archaeologist by profession. I've also had extensive training in weaponry and hand-to-hand combat because I've plied my profession under some very hostile circumstances.'

Atarina was silent several moments, thinking. At last, she said slowly, 'So . . . you're here because you were attempting to decipher whatever it is the Jelly Men communicate to one another . . . and you ended up trapped here, alone, because the inhabitants were killed off, and after that your own computer was used against you.'

'Yes, that about sums it up,' he rejoined.

But something in his voice prompted her to ask, 'What is it you're not telling me?'

'I'm not telling you a lot of things,' he said, this time with candour.

She saw something in him that suddenly angered her. 'Do not think to protect me! I am a soldier, not some simpering, dewy-eyed maiden-!' She spluttered a moment in inarticulate fury. 'If you continue to laugh, I will break you . . . your . . .'

Somehow they were in each other's arms in his sleeping-compartment, making angry, repudiatory love as though denying their own needs and taunting the other's apparent weakness. After several hours they lay back, intertwined, exhausted, sweat-slick and gasping for air like a pair of punched-out boxers. They were soon rocked to sleep by the tube-car's headlong motion as it sped through the eternal underground night.

-

'"Outpost 11, this will be our final broadcast until further notice. Repeat: this will be our final broadcast until further notice. The Djelimen fleet is about to pass our position. They are in battle-formation and number eighty-three thousand-"'

'Eighty-three thousand!' Riker breathed incredulously. 'Even with all our forces united and combined, even if we had the right kind of weapons . . . we don't stand a chance!'

'Perhaps it is time to set aside the niceties of engagement,' Worf offered, an unsettling gleam in his eye.

'You mean use banned weapons,' Picard muttered, appalled by the idea but unable to set it aside. 'Normally I'd say "no" . . . that approving their use would do irreparable damage to our moral fabric . . . but under the circumstances it appears that we either fight or die.' He shook his head. 'It appears the Jelly Men have us backed into a corner which forces us to consider the unthinkable.'

'Might I make a suggestion?' Data put in as though trying to stop a friend from peering down the barrel of a gun to see if it was loaded.

'What is it, Mr Data?' Picard asked impatiently.

'Should we not examine all other options before we, to borrow from an old Romulan proverb, "open the door to Armageddon to see if it is still there"?'

The captain sighed, and subsided. 'Point taken. It is a door that, once opened, will possibly never be closed again. That said, Mr Data, can you suggest any alternatives?'

'At this point in time, only partially,' Data admitted. 'Because the djelimen fleet is on its way to a single destination, this planet, it seems to me that this affords us an opportunity to destroy their entire fleet. How this could be accomplished, however,' he admitted, 'is another matter.'

'Let's give it some thought,' Picard said. 'Mr La Forge?'

'I'm already on it!' Geordi said, rising to leave his station. 'I'm going to assemble the engineering staff to see if we can come up with any ideas.'

'In the meantime,' the captain said to Mr Worf, 'let's keep our distance from the djelimen ships. I'd like to know where they are at all times.'

'Aye, Sir.'

'Short of blowing up the planet, I can't seem to think of anything,' Riker said as a quiet aside to the captain, 'and if there's a way to blow up the planet with the kind of force we need, I can't think of that either.'

'I can think of at least one way,' Picard said cryptically, almost to himself, 'but I'll only go down that road if I can think of no other alternative.'

-

Victor sat bolt upright in total darkness.

Startled awake by the sudden loss of his shoulder as a pillow, Atarina followed suit. 'What is it-?'

'Sh!' Victor hissed. Both listened in the dark until the strain of listening became painful. 'They've done something to the power,' he hissed, the whisper of his voice somehow casting an ominous pall. 'This car has its own power. Even if the rail system's down, we shouldn't be affected.'

'What are we going to do?' Atarina asked him in a low voice.

He sighed, thinking. 'The last time I looked at the chronometer it was 4:44 AM. I'd say it's after 6:00 AM now, and we were due to arrive in about another hour. We might as well start walking. C'mon, buddy!' he said to Chico. 'We need your eyes and ears.'

-

It took less than half an hour in the dark to spot a hatch leading to the surface. Victor had to carry Chico across his shoulders as they ascended the metal handholds of a vertical tube which led to a hatch on the surface. As three pairs of eyes peered out of the dark into the blinding light of day, a waft of dry desert heat caressed their skin like a gently seductive promise of violence.

'Well, buddy, it looks like you'll be right in your element,' Victor said to Chico as they climbed out onto a bare, rolling desert plain. The desert lynx did not greet their surroundings with enthusiasm. 'This is going to be murder on the feet. We'll have to take it slow and careful.'

'How will you know which direction to go?' Atarina asked him, her Romulan physiology quite at home in the hot, dry climate.

'The underground tube runs roughly parallel to a little stream whose channel should be . . . over there to the east where that slight ridge-line runs,' he told her, staring off into the distance, a hand shading his eyes. 'The stream ends up at the old complex where the sheds are. There are also lots of places to hide in the stream channel,' he added meaningly, taking one of the crossbows and a quiver of bolts from Atarina. 'We must make quite a trio,' he said, unable to suppress a wry grin. 'Two naked humanoids with their primitive weapons and a hunting cat . . . what?' He followed Atarina's gaze. She was staring into the distance, head cocked as though-

'Listen,' she said quietly.

He did. And then- 'Let's get moving! It's a djelimen ground-craft!'

-

As the stream's channel came into view, Atarina saw that it cut deeply into the desert plain by at least thirty feet. Ahead of her, Victor wasted no time, but dove feet-first into the stream, which was deep and blue. She followed suit and plunged into the tepid water which flowed at a fairly brusque pace.

'C'mon, buddy!'

After several moments of reluctant weaving back and forth atop the channel rim, Chico dove in and paddled next to them.

'Huh! Didn't think you were going to make it!' Victor said to the cat, relieved. 'Here, put your paws on my shoulders . . . and if you claw me, you're on your own.'

'Are the Jelly Men in pursuit of us?' Atarina asked him.

'There's no way of knowing until they're right on top of you,' he said, swimming at an easy pace downstream. 'You can be right next to them, and if they're not after you, you might as well be invisible.' Into her look of doubtful incomprehension, he explained, 'they're so different from us that they don't see what they're not looking for. Hopefully you won't have to see them in order to find out for yourself.'

-

'Commander Raiis, the enemy ships are not neutralised,' the young tactical officer said, the accusatory note in her voice the only sign of her disbelief.

'Engage the cloaking device,' he ordered, exchanging a sidelong half-glance with the elderly physician at his side.

'Their internal structure must be decentralised, making it difficult, if near-impossible, to do critical damage without completely destroying them,' the physician muttered. 'At a guess I would say that those ships are constructed with a number of redundant subsystems, each of them ready to perform at need should another cease to function.'

The commander nodded. 'The Federation captain and his senior staff will no doubt arrive at the same conclusion.' He frowned, thinking. 'This is not unlike doing battle with the Borg.'

'You think those may be Borg ships?' the physician said in surprise.

The commander shook his head. 'I think not, Dr Nemed. We have detected no Borg technology. But the similarities are disturbing.' He sighed, leaning forward, chin on fist. 'What are we dealing with?' he muttered. 'I know there are life-forms aboard those ships, but they do not act like any life-forms we've yet encountered . . . with the sole exception of the Borg.'

-

'What is it, Mr Data?' captain Picard asked the android, who was frowning.

'I am receiving some sort of encrypted message from the Romulan ship,' Data replied, staring at his instruments as though doubting them.

Staring at the communications console in surprise, Worf said, 'I am receiving nothing on any wavelength.'

'The method is unusual,' Data said. 'It is in the form a of neutrino stream directed specifically at us, I suspect so that the djelimen can not intercept it. The message appears to be an observation.'

'What observation?' the captain asked him.

Data turned to face him. 'That there are similarities between the djelimen and the Borg.'

'Similarities?' Riker demanded. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Summon Counsellor Troi to the bridge,' Picard snapped. 'Tell her it's urgent.'

-

Their backs to the stone wall of the grotto, the deep stream before them and the far wall of the channel beyond, Atarina and Victor watched and listened. Slowly it came, first the ominous rumble and vibration of a wholly alien technology, and then the shadow which for a heart-stopping eternity passed directly overhead. They dared not utter a sound nor move even fractionally, and feared they may already be caught. But gradually the shadow moved away, and with it went the menacing echo of an evil alien presence.

Without warning he yanked her to her feet and urged her back into the water. Chico needed no urging this time- still lank and dripping, he clung to Victor's back. Atarina swam beside them, looking over her shoulder frequently for any sign of pursuit. 'The water is getting deeper,' she said. And it was getting cooler, sapping her flagging reserves of energy. 'How much further?'

He glanced at the sun. 'It's about two or three in the afternoon . . . I thought for sure we'd be there by now. But now we've got another problem: if they're following us, we're leading them right to where we're going.'

'What do you suggest?'

'There's a place marked on the map,' he told her. 'We should come to it before we reach the old complex. I'll know it when we come to it. We should be able to hide there almost indefinitely.'

'And then?'

'Let's just get there,' he said, scanning either side ahead for any sign of trouble. 'We'll worry about making plans when we've got time to rest and think.'

-

Giving them virtually no concealment, the channel proceeded in a nearly straight line for almost three miles until their nerves were exacerbated from the fear of being discovered. But at last there came a rise in the land into which the deep stream disappeared from view. Beyond lay tiers of stone bluffs. Sensing a change in his mood, Atarina asked, 'Are we nearing the old complex?'

'It's about another leg,' he told her, 'but somewhere just ahead we can hole up for a while.'

'Where, exactly?'

'I'm not sure,' he replied.

'That does not sound encouraging,' she muttered.

The stream's course began to meander through tiers of eroded rock that were a maze of grottos and interconnected ravines. At times the stream divided, and Atarina noticed that Victor seemed to be counting as he selected left or right forks. At last they reached a deep pool ringed on three sides by a long overhang. On the far side was a shallow rise and a hole in the stone face.

'That's it!' Victor said, a note of excitement and relief in his voice. 'That hole leads to a natural chimney which goes up through the rock to the surface. At the bottom of the chimney the stream comes out through a short underground tunnel, and then does underground again. To get to the hiding place we simply climb the chimney until we get to a door- ow!'

Atarina sensed the reason Chico had sunk his claws into Victor's shoulders and swung around, crossbow at the ready. 'Something is approaching the rim of the channel,' she hissed. 'It comes from all sides. We are surrounded!'

'Let's move it!' Victor snapped. 'Forget about covering our backs! Head for the chimney!'

Her sense of dread seemed to emanate from every level of every sense: the advance of the djelimen was an alien, insect scrabbling from all sides, a scuttling forward that was a blind, brute impulse which was utterly devoid of purpose or design. It was a primal imperative, a directive to eat which hadn't evolved to feel hunger, a doing without wanting, a drive to breed without any notion of desire, an overriding impetus to absorb higher organisms with no comprehension of identity and individuality. She began to feel a tingling over every inch of her skin that turned gradually into the nerve-writhing touch of electromagnetic energy-

'Victor-!'

'I know! Keep going. Just follow me- I'll get us out of this!'

Just before they reached the far side, instead of getting out of the water and making for the hole, Victor heaved himself up and lobbed Chico through the opening. With that, he dove. Taking in a lungfull of air, she followed him down into darkness.

Entering what appeared to be nothing more than an underwater cave, she soon noticed a faint illumination coming from within. Victor's form was a lighter dark writhing within a larger darkness, that soon turned into a man swimming towards a jagged horizontal opening which allowed in a pale grey light. The opening was just wide enough to swim through without touching the sides of the stone throat. Beyond lay an underwater cave, and to the lower right, through a round hole, shone the blue flickering light of day.

Atarina shot to the surface beside him, finding herself in a cave centred by a single huge stalagmite. Victor's attention was directed above the stalagmite, where there was a vertical chimney leading to the surface, which admitted a blinding shaft of sunlight. A disgruntled growl got her attention- it was Chico, dripping wet, circling the base of the stalagmite a few feet above the water line.

Victor spat a profanity which drew her attention to the shaft of light coming from above and a scrabbling sound.

'We've got to get up there somehow, before they start coming down the chimney!' he grated. And then, 'Why are you looking like that?'

'Look!' she blurted, pointing. Under the water, shadows were moving.

'Son-of-a-bitch!' he spat. 'They're coming through the tunnel!' With that, he made his way to the stalagmite and pulled himself up onto it. 'C'mon! Give me your hand!' He yanked her up out of the water, and with surprising strength and agility, gained the top of the stalagmite and heaved her up into the chimney.

The rock felt strange against her hands and feet, as though it were somehow writhing, a sort of vibration just bordering on perception. 'It's too wide! I can't get a proper grip!'

'Just hang on a moment.' He caught Chico and tossed him up to that he landed across her shoulders.

'I'm slip-!'

With bruising strength he gripped the back of her leg just above the knee and heaved. With his support, even though she slipped and would have fallen on her own, she began working her way up the chimney. As soon as he was able to get a purchase on the rock, he worked his way underneath her, supporting her climb.

The task was pure hell, and seemed to take forever as the shadows above and below coalesced into nightmare shapes, but suddenly her grasping hand found a shelf-

'There's a side-tunnel!'

'Get in there!' he rasped, nearly at the end of his strength. 'Go!' And all at once, they were standing in a tunnel before the chimney, crossbows drawn and ready. 'Here!' he said suddenly, handing her his crossbow and quiver of bolts. 'Try to hold them off. I've got to find the door.'

Turning, she saw what he meant. The tunnel went a short distance and ended at a blank wall of stone. Chico backed away from the chimney, hissing, long black ears pinned back. The nerve-jangling sensation was returning, causing her hands and feet and teeth to ache. The Jelly Men were very near, now, close enough to see. She peered downward . . .

Her initial reaction was disbelief in what she was seeing. Perched on the base of the stalagmite was a Jelly Man. It was wide, flat and transparent, with a head in the middle. But no, it wasn't a head. It was some sort of organ that forced air into its interior. The air went down a tube into an organ that squeezed out tiny bubbles of air that passed through a clear liquid through clear tubes running throughout its body. The reddish "mouth" that opened and closed, grotesquely gulping down air, was topped with a pair of spots that at first glance looked like eyes- but they were not eyes. Within the Jelly Man were pale organs of pink, yellow and blue, reddish, purple and green. It took her a moment to realise that the flat bottom side of the Jelly Man was a reflective, mother-of-pearl coloured membrane, and that below this, hidden from above, were scrabbling, crab-like legs.

Atarina frowned as she chose a target for her first bolt. Surely such a primitive-looking organism could be brought down or disabled with a single shot! She chose the "mouth", assuming that the simplest way to neutralise the creature was to cut off its air-supply.

The bolt struck home, stuck in the Jelly Man's "mouth" with a sodden "smack"! Atarina raised an eyebrow speculatively. The creature seemed not to notice, and with a line of creatures forming behind it, began working its way to the top of the stalagmite. Something- the sudden loss of bright daylight, perhaps- caused her to glance upwards, and she saw that a Jelly Man above was straddling the chimney and beginning to work its way downward. As soon as it was fully in the throat of the chimney, another followed, and another. And below the Jelly Men were surging upwards, supported one on top of the other, until the highest one had gained a purchase on the chimney and began to heave itself upward.

Thinking to dislodge the creatures she began firing a succession of bolts at their horny legs, but soon discovered that a Jelly Man, though filled with bolts like a pincushion, was slowed very little.

'Victor,' she called over her shoulder, 'now would be a good time to find that door.'

'I'm working on it,' he replied irritably, causing her to realise that he was making little progress.

'I guess it's up to me, then,' she muttered, reloading. She fired a succession of shots once more, attempting to dislodge the grasp of the claws at the end of the Jelly Men's legs, but for every grip that was broken, too many other legs had hold of the stone. She began firing into internal organs then, watching carefully for any sign that the creature had been hurt, but again, nothing-

'Stand back!'

She jumped back just in time as the Jelly Men in the chimney above suddenly lost their footing, as a body, and plunged downward through the chimney, landing atop those ascending below, sending the whole mass of Jelly Men crashing down atop the point of the stalagmite. She went to lean over the hole for a better look when a hand at her waist yanked her back.

'What-!' Her angry expostulation died on her lips as the chimney vanished, replaced by blank stone. Still angry, she turned her attention away to find herself in a room hewn out of the stone. 'How is this possible?'

'I'm guessing it's some type of holographic technology,' he told her. 'The handholds inside the chimney were just projections. I turned them off. That wall,' he nodded to where the entrance had been, 'is a projection.'

'That is not what I meant! I meant- Why is such a thing possible at all? I thought there was no power!'

Baffled, he digested this a moment. 'I didn't even think . . . you're right, of course. This place should be as dead as everywhere else.' He glanced around at the room's equipment, all of which seemed to be running normally. Quirking an eyebrow, he took her hands-

'Sharing ourselves once does not give you the right to treat me with such physical familiarity, Victor Shaw!' she snapped.

'H'm,' he said, taking the crossbow and quiver from her. 'How many times, then?'

Seeing his expression, she found herself unable not to smile. 'Victor! Put me down or I will hurt you!'

'You don't sound very convincing.'

She made an exasperated sound. 'You have no idea what you're getting yourself into.'

'Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea,' he rejoined. Her responding look gave him pause, however. 'What?'

'Oh . . . nothing.'

Chico tried his best to doze as the two humanoids found a cot and wrestled on it until they fell asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Councillor Deanna Troi stepped off the turbolift trailed by Dr Beverley Crusher. 'You wanted me on the bridge, Captain? Your message sounded urgent.'

'I need you to tell me what you sense from the djelimen,' captain Picard told her.

The Betazoid councillor blinked once, slowly, confounded by his request. 'I'm afraid I don't sense much of anything from them.'

'Then tell me what little you _do_ sense,' Picard persisted.

Deanna shook her head helplessly. 'I'm sorry . . . it's just so vague. I can sense that they're out there, but that's about all. I get no sense of individual presences at all.'

'Are they a collective?' Picard demanded, his tone of voice harsh. 'Councillor, this is important. Do they strike you as a collective entity . . . like the Borg?'

She paled, looking stricken at the implications. 'Are you saying that there may be some connexion between the djelimen and the Borg?'

'Not a connexion necessarily,' he replied. 'At least, not exactly. The Romulan commander has hinted that there are disturbing similarities.'

Armed with this new information the Betazoid woman opened her senses, her large eyes dark, liquid, and seeing beyond what could be seen. Raw emotion began playing across her features: realisation, shock, horror- 'My god! Jean-Luc . . . I know now what "djelimen" means!'

'What is it?' Riker asked, rising to his feet, partly out of concern for the woman he loved.

'It's both what they are . . . and what they do,' she uttered with loathing. 'They're composites, made up from parts of all the beings they've absorbed. They're after anything that will increase their ability to do what they do, which is assimilate.' Holding the captain's eye, she said, 'They're what the Borg would be if the Borg were wholly biological. I think . . . I can't be certain, but I think they're some type of organism that may have evolved out of Borg technology, possibly by accident.'

'I think Councillor Troi is right,' Data broke in, 'except for one thing: because the djelimen are living organisms, they may have evolved alongside and as a result of Borg technology, rather than having evolved directly _from_ Borg technology. This means that they may be a byproduct of the Borg's having assimilated one life-form they had some use for, but attempted to discard a second life-form that was symbiotic to the first. The symbiants could conceivably have replaced the Borg technology with themselves-'

'Minus mind and higher functions,' Dr Crusher took up the train of thought, 'but still making use of mind and intelligence, the way we Humans do when using a computer that has many times our capacity. Except that these organisms seem very primitive . . . very basic . . .'

Deanna nodded. 'They _are_ primitive. _Very_ primitive. Almost like . . . like single cells in a person's body, which are composites consisting of a cell and what originally were independent viruses. But because these are primitive creatures that borrow, they've gained intelligence but not the awareness that goes with it.'

'Maybe that's what this is about,' the captain mused, lost in thought. 'Perhaps this is a type of evolution we've never encountered before, that of a primitive form of life that, in evolving toward complexity has somehow bypassed all the higher functions . . . and under conditions where there is no controlling structure or environment . . . no constraints on how it goes about it.'

'You're talking uncontrolled growth on an unimaginable scale,' Riker said with a frown, not impressed with the notion.

Captain Picard nodded. 'Yes, Number One. And as such there may be no stopping it.'

-

'You do realise the only reason this keeps happening is because we're naked,' Atarina mumbled into Victor's shoulder the next morning. 'Naked and forced to be alone together.'

'So who's forcing you?'

She knew he was grinning, and punished him for it.

'Ow! You know darned well that if there wasn't some kind of attraction- OW! What is it with you? You know I'm right- OW! Okay, that's enough!' He got up from underneath her, rubbing his shoulder and wincing. 'It's time we were going, anyway.'

'Going?' she demanded, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. 'Going where? According to the sensor equipment this entire area is crawling with Jelly Men.'

'There's an underground access-tunnel that leads straight to the old complex,' he told her.

'You could simply have told me that!' she grumbled, rising from the cot. 'What else have you withheld from me?'

'Oh . . . I may have found some explosives,' he replied with mock-evasiveness.

She gave him a look. 'Victor Shaw, I am more than capable of breaking both your legs. You would do well to remember that.'

'It's never far from my mind,' he muttered, unable not to be serious.

As they made their way toward the underground access-tunnel, she couldn't resist a smirk behind his back.

-

'Something must be taking place at that location,' Commander Raiis said as they watched the activity of the djelimen on the planet's surface.

His old companion, Dr Nemed, nodded as he stared at the forward viewing screen. 'This planet is said to be a veritable warren of underground tunnels. I cannot help but wonder if someone is down there trying to fend the djelimen off.'

'If Atarina yet lives, that could well be her location,' the commander said, drawing the attention of all on the bridge. 'Is there any way we can fire weapons without harming or killing someone below the surface?'

'A photon torpedo rigged to discharge a plasma burst, just above the surface!' a young female officer at the tactical station blurted. She was Atarina's friend, and was concerned on her account. 'The flash should incinerate any above-ground life-forms without destroying surface structures. At the least, it would alert anyone below-ground that we are here.'

'It would indeed,' the commander said, sharing the ghost of a smile with the doctor. 'Torpedo room, I have a special package for you to deliver . . .'

-

Atarina and Victor startled as the room was shaken by the dull "crump" of an above-ground explosion. Her eyes alight, Atarina dashed to the sensor equipment and began scanning. 'It's my ship! They're letting me know they're here!'

'You should go,' Victor told her, moving to a communications console.

She stared at him, her expression unreadable. 'You can't possibly be thinking of staying here.'

'Someone has to,' he told her, selecting a well-used Romulan subspace frequency. 'As long as the Jelly Men are occupied with this planet, they'll be contained at one location.'

She stared as though seeing him for the first time. And then, 'Victor Shaw, if you will not accompany me, I will not leave.' She squeezed between him and the communications console. 'Commander Raiis, this is Lieutenant Atarina Dar.'

'Lieutenant! This is an unexpected surprise,' the commander's voice replied. 'I suggest you make your way to the surface immediately and prepare to beam up.'

'Negative, Commander!' she replied shortly. 'I must remain here to keep the djelimen's attention occupied.'

There was a prolonged silence. At last, it was broken by the commander's quiet voice. 'Understood. The enemy is moving to intercept us, so we must leave you for now. Raiis out.'

'You should have gone,' Victor told her as she stood stock-still in front of the console.

'Do not try to tell me what I should or should not do,' she replied, facing him. 'I believe you were about to lead the way to an underground tunnel?'

He sighed, considering her ruefully. 'All right. This way.'

-

'Wow!' Geordi breathed, watching a wide-band replay of the surface blast through his visor. 'I've never seen a high-energy plasma flash used as a weapon before! It left very little damage, but it's a sure bet that any organic matter within its range was pretty much cooked! Say, Data, you don't think . . .'

'That they were attempting to destroy djelimen without harming planetary occupants within the subsurface? I think it highly probable that that is the case, Geordi. The Romulans stayed in the vicinity as though looking for something or someone, rather than remove themselves from the vicinity as soon as their mission was carried out. I suspect they have located their missing crew member, who in turn is quite probably in the company of Victor Shaw. There was no sign of transporter activity, so it appears that Shaw and the Romulan crew member are working in concert.'

Geordi brought up a map display as a number of people in Main Engineering looked on. 'If that's the case, Data, then they're probably headed here to this complex, which is pretty close to where they are right now.'

Data frowned as he looked on, consulting with his internal memory banks. 'That entire area was shut down and abandoned many years ago. Perhaps the original inhabitants left something behind that Shaw feels will be of some use.'

Geordi called up the complex' inventory. 'I don't see anything here worth looking at. It's just a list of old parts and machinery that's no good for anything- whoa! What was that?'

All eyes were turned to a side display of the planet's surface. The site of the Romulan plasma burst was gone, replaced by a massive eruption from beneath the planet's surface. Caught in the blast were the remaining djelimen and their ground-assault ships.

'It would appear that we now have conclusive evidence that Victor Shaw and his Romulan companion are alive and well,' Data said without the slightest trace of irony. 'Assuming they are on foot and running, it is safe to assume that they are just about to reach the old complex.'

'Here come the djelimen reinforcements!' Geordi said, raising his voice over the Red Alert siren that suddenly shattered the air. 'We'd better get back to the bridge and tell the captain what we know.'

-

'The identity of the Human accompanying Lt Atarina Dar is one Victor Shaw,' Commander Raiis' second-in-command, Captain Oanis, told him. 'An unsanctioned death-warrant has been issued for his person.'

'Unsanctioned?' Commander Raiis responded with a frown.

'The High Command has refused to authorise any action taken against him, but has fallen short in its position by not prohibiting such action,' Oanis said.

'Meaning the High Command's hands are tied,' Dr Nemed commented, 'due to some sort of involvement, either with this Human or something to do with his activities.'

'So . . . he is familiar with certain doings on our home world,' Raiis mused. 'And our Lieutenant Dar sees fit to render him aid. Captain Oanis, I would like you to make some discreet enquiries: find out what Mr Shaw has been up to. I would know what sort of man we are assisting. It disturbs me that some want him dead. Either he poses a threat or someone wants him to fail.'

'He must pose a threat,' Captain Oanis said. 'I can seen no possible reason for anyone on our home world wanting him to fail at his mission if he is truly working against the djelimen invasion.'

'The world of politics is never so simple or straightforward, Captain,' Dr Nemed said. 'You can be sure that, for some, short-sighted self-interest will always outweigh concern for our people.'

'Nevertheless, I would know the truth,' the commander said pointedly, sending Oanis on his task with alacrity.

'Well, well,' the doctor mused humourlessly, 'perhaps there is more to this invasion than we were led to believe.'

-

Both of them off-shift, the young couple headed for the Enterprise holodeck, eager to lose themselves in the intimate forgetfulness of each other's arms for a time, as they had been doing for nearly five weeks. Meanwhile, the ship passed through a tenuous tendril of electromagnetic energy which registered automatically on the ship's sensors only as a passing anomaly of little significance. A technician noted the occurrence with a raised eyebrow but didn't report it.

The couple stripped off their clothes and ran into the computer-generated surf and sunny skies of a simulated world. They laughed, embraced, made love on the beach with abandon, lay for a time under the blazing image of a yellow sun, at last rising once more to walk hand-in-hand along the beach, the warm breeze caressing their skin.

'What?' he teased, then followed the direction of her gaze.

'What on earth is that? It looks like a giant jellyfish. Did you put that in the programme?'

He stared, frowning. 'No . . . maybe it's a glitch or something. Could be a leftover from another programme. It happens sometimes.'

Curious, they moved toward the odd-looking creature which moved slowly toward them. And then-

'OW! What the hell!' He looked down to see a stinging tendril that had reached out and wrapped itself around his leg.

She screamed. 'Ian! Get it off me! It burns!'

The water around and beneath the Jelly Man began to seethe as it surged forward and enveloped the hapless couple, she screaming in high adulation, he doing the same as he fought frantically to pull their melting bodies free. He watched as his hands became enveloped, dissolving before his eyes into individual, free-floating muscles, veins, nerves, tendons and bones. Beside him, she was a mass of floating tissue and organs floating off disjoined bones. He was able to scream only once more before it engulfed him altogether.

-

The woman standing before the holodeck door with a towel over her arm glanced at her chronometer in annoyance. They were running late again! She keyed in a number that overrode the locking mechanism and opened the door. Too damned bad if she caught them with their pants down!

To her surprise, the holodeck lay empty, having switched itself off some time earlier. Off to one corner, however, someone had left a mess to clean up. Angry now, she began to leave in order to call in the cleaning crew. But then, something about the mess got her attention. Had it moved? Dropping her towel, she moved closer for a better look. Strange . . . there was something almost identifiable about . . .

For a long moment her mouth was open in a frozen rictus of inarticulate horror. At last she staggered away, heaving the contents of her stomach, and running for the intercom.

-

'Does the Commander know about this?' the young Romulan soldier asked Captain Oanis.

'He does not and he will not,' the captain replied, addressing the four. 'He does not realise that the human poses a grave threat to us all. You will beam down, search him out and kill him.'

'And Lieutenant Atarina?'

'She can no longer be trusted,' the captain told him. 'I do not know why she aids this human, but it must be assumed that she is a traitor. You must kill her also.'

The four soldiers had long wondered why they had been assigned to this mission. It now seemed that there was more to this coming war than they had assumed.

'It will be done,' the mission leader said. 'We will report back to you when it is accomplished.'

As the captain watched the four soldiers disappear into the transporter shimmer, there was a hail from the bridge. 'Captain Oanis, we have received a report that a transporter has been activated.'

'It was merely a test,' Oanis replied. 'The transporters are long overdue for scheduled maintenance.'

'Aye, Sir.'

The Romulan captain's mouth was a hard line as he considered. Victor Shaw would not escape his grasp this time.

-

'Your ears still sore? I told you to cover them.'

'They are not sore!' Atarina lied, wincing as she rubbed, futilely. 'They are . . . ringing. You used too much explosive. We might have been killed in the blast. How much further?'

'We're almost there. This is one time I wish I had a tricorder. It'd be nice to know what's waiting for us up ahead.'

Chico trotted beside them, head slightly upraised, sniffing the air. To him the place had an old-cave smell, which meant disuse, abandonment, and safety.

'Your caracal is better than any tricorder,' Atarina told him. 'In some ways he is better at interpreting data than ourselves.'

'Yeah, well, his eyes and ears are certainly better,' Victor muttered, distracted. 'I would really like to know why this area has power, too. In some ways I'd prefer groping around in the dark. At least that way, we'd be harder to see . . . here we are! There's a door up ahead. It'll take us to the basement of the old complex.'

Unconsciously and automatically, both loaded and armed their crossbows as they approached the door bordered with alternating, diagonal black and yellow stripes. Victor opened the door silently and slowly as Atarina stood ready with her crossbow aimed at the opening. 'Clear!' she said in a low voice.

Two pairs of eyes dropped to the desert lynx. He stood stock-still, listening. The small hairs on the backs of their necks standing up, Victor silently allowed the door to close. To their left was an unlighted space. Victor took a look, took Chico by his collar, and gestured Atarina to move into it. At the back was a low space under the ascending concrete stairs which began at the door. They stooped into it, knelt, and listened and waited.

After several long minutes their eyes adjusted to the gloom. They watched Chico carefully for any sign. He remained motionless and still, watchful and listening. Victor was just losing patience, when Atarina cocked her head, frowning. Then, she and Victor exchanged a look.

'Those are Romulan voices,' Atarina whispered, 'but I do not recognise them.'

'Could they be from another ship?' Victor asked her.

'There are no other ships in the area,' Atarina told him firmly.

'Your ears are sharper than mine. Can you hear what they're saying?'

'Two complain to a third that something impairs their sensor equipment.'

Victor's smile was not a smile. 'I took the precaution some time ago of sending a robotic crew around to spray a suppressor compound on all the surfaces of every habitable area.'

'Yes, I recall that you told me of this.' She was silent for a while, listening. At last, she said, 'They wait in ambush! They know we are coming.'

Victor held her glare for several long moments. 'Well? What do you think is going on?'

'I am being betrayed by someone from my own ship,' she grated. 'It is not possible that I am unacquainted with each and every member of so small a vessel, not unless they were deliberately concealed from my eyes. This can only mean that someone aboard my ship has an agenda other than the present mission.' She stared at him searchingly.

'You should have gone back to your ship when I asked you to,' he said with a sigh. 'They're probably assassins sent here to kill me. Because you're here helping me, that makes you suspect in their eyes. They'll kill you if they can.'

'You had better tell me why Romulan assassins would be sent to kill you,' she told him warningly, her voice and eyes hard. 'It is no longer enough to say that you can't tell me.'

He closed his eyes a long moment, considering. At last, he said, 'One of the old royal families tried to wrest power and form a new city-state ten years ago. There were a number of high-level murders, including members of a number of the old royal families. Things got pretty messy because several lines were crossed. Several high-ranking government officials were complicit. Certain royal family members got themselves involved in the decision-making process of several levels of government, which they are expressly forbidden to do.

'I was right in the middle of it, directing security for one of the royal families who didn't want to be involved in any way. But things ended up getting pretty crazy, and the only way to put an end to the violence was to round up those involved and summarily kill them. There was no other option, because every time they were arrested, some official with conflicting ties would let them out again, and the whole cycle of corruption and violence would start over.'

'The V'Hollen Massacre,' Atarina breathed, lowering her crossbow, which had been aimed at his heart. 'You were there!'

'I was,' he said tiredly. 'Unfortunately, it's not over yet. The youngest son was allowed to live because he was just a kid. After the massacre he went underground. And as of last year he emerged again, determine to pick up where the rest of his family left off.'

'The V'Hollens are known to me,' Atarina muttered, her features unreadable in shadow. 'You should have told me from the beginning.' She checked her crossbow. 'I will assist in your defence, and if Fortune or Fate allow, I will help you slay the youngest V'Hollen. I personally would like to strike the killing blow.'

He was watching her speculatively. 'Is there something personal in this for you?'

'A V'Hollen violated my older sister and was never punished for it. I rejoiced when I heard they were dead. I will rejoice once more when the youngest is slain and he is prevented from spreading his seed.'

'Remind me to stay on your good side,' Victor muttered as they advanced on the door once more.

-

The four Romulan mercenaries waiting on the other side of the door lowered their disruptors fractionally as a sound came to their ears.

'That is not the sound of a Human,' one of them muttered. 'There are a number of wild predators on this planet, some of which are known to use the underground tunnels. They are deadly. Shaw could not be sharing a tunnel with them. There must be another approach to the complex.'

'Blast that old ship and her useless sensors!' the leader spat. 'Shaw may have reached the complex by now. You two will search the operations centre. We will check the main entrance.'

-

'Good boy!' Victor praised Chico as the sound of the assassins' feet retreated.

'There are four, at least,' Atarina said, her head cocked, listening. 'They are armed with disruptors.'

'How can you tell?' Victor asked her, surprised that she could know such a thing with certainty.

'The sound of a disruptor sliding into its holster is a familiar one to me,' Atarina told him. 'I could not mistake it for anything else.'

'They were foolish to come here armed like that,' Victor mused. 'A disruptor discharge where the djelimen could detect it would have this place crawling with the enemy, although I suspect that whoever sent those soldiers here knows this, and withheld that information from them.'

'The first rule of assassination is to assassinate the assassins, thereby removing any direct connexion between the intended target and any who ordered the killing,' Atarina mused. 'That gives me an idea. You should go to the shed where the probes are kept and wait for me there. I will create a diversion which should provide us with time to work on the probes while being uninterrupted, and therefore undistracted. No! Do not speak! Do not question me or try to change my mind! I know the risk. It is mine to take.'

She was gone before he could think of a way to change her mind.

-

'Sir,' Worf said to Captain Picard with a frown, 'Moments ago I picked up a faint sign of transporter activity. Based on the content of the signal, someone from the Romulan ship has beamed down to the planet's surface. Only now I intercepted an intercom communication claiming that the transporter activity was merely a test.'

'How were you able to intercept an intercom transmission?' Riker asked him in surprise.

'It's an old ship,' the captain told him. 'Worn shielding on connectors allows small amounts of radiation to leak out. Replay what took place, Mr Worf,'

'Aye, Sir.'

The Enterprise bridge crew watched and listened as the transporter signal was heard, and the ship's captain denied to the bridge that anyone had beamed down.

'It appears that the ship's captain and its commander are at cross-purposes,' the big Klingon rumbled.

Picard's visage became grim. 'Break communications silence, Mr Worf. Hail the commander of the Romulan ship.'

The Romulan commander appeared angry at Picard's apparent lack of discretion. 'Commander Raiis here.'

'Permission to beam aboard,' captain Picard said before anyone could react. 'I have some information to share with you directly.'

Raiis gave no sign, sitting motionless for several moments. At last, he said, 'Permission granted, but I advise you to be swift. The djelimen ships have intercepted this communication and are moving in. Raiis out.'

'You're in charge, Number One,' captain Picard snapped, rising from the command chair and heading for the turbolift before he could be questioned. 'Do what you must to continue our present action.'

'I hate it when he does that,' Riker muttered, taking the command chair.

-

The two assassins searching the operations centre of the old complex reacted swiftly to the sound of light footfalls coming from a corridor which led outside. They burst through the exterior door into dazzling sunlight, weapons at the ready. Outside was a fenced compound containing stacks of old parts. It was overgrown with tall grass and thickets of brush which offered ample concealment for someone attempting to flee. One of the assassins drew out a sensor device and began scanning- only to have it shot out of his hand. Bemused more than intimidated, he crouched down and retrieved something. 'An arrow,' he said. 'How quaint.'

'Not an arrow,' he companion said, crouching beside him and watching for their quarry. 'A bolt, which was fired from a crossbow.'

'Whichever it was, it succeeded in rendering the scanner useless-'

They ducked reflexively as another bolt whizzed just over their heads. As one, they fired in the direction it had come from.

'There! In the shadows moving toward those trees! I believe it's Atarina. We'll lose her in there.' He pulled out his communicator and barked, 'Subject identified and on the move. Request you join us in the pursuit. Atarina is attempting to escape into the local vegetation. Victor Shaw will be with her.'

'Understood.'

Scuttling on her belly through the grass, Atarina paused to watch as the four assassins, none of whom she recognised, fanned out and in a crouching run made their way toward the forest. She regretted the loss of Victor's phaser, but knew it was probable suicide to have used it herself. She had set it to fire automatically in FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO . . .

Listening with satisfaction as four disruptors returned fire, she covered the final distance back to the door in a crouching run, opened it, and remained, holding the door open just a crack until she heard the approach of a number of the Jelly Men's ground-assault craft.

She was surprised at the emotion in Victor's eyes as she rejoined him in the shed housing the old probes. 'When I heard disruptor fire, I thought . . .'

'Never mind!' she said hastily, pushing past him toward the probes. What do we have to work with?' She studied the rows of probes lining the walls. They appeared to have been carefully stored away, perhaps being intended for future use.

'They seem to be operational,' Victor told her. 'If we replace their payloads with some sort of dense mass, that should do it.'

-

The Romulan commander and Federation captain were deep in conversation when they were interrupted by a hail from the bridge of the Romulan ship.

'Commander Raiis, someone is launching weapons from the planet's surface! Two more of the djelimen ships have been heavily damaged!'

'On my way!' Raiis barked, nodding to captain Picard to follow him.

On the bridge they watched in wonder as missile after missile arced its way into space, came around in the direction of a djelimen ship, then became an elongated blur as its warp engine was engaged.

'Target those ships!' Raiis said, the light of battle in his eyes. 'Fire everything we've got at them!'

-

Riker and Worf's eyes met as the Romulan ship uncloaked itself and began firing with abandon at the djelimen ships.

'Fire at will, Mr Worf!' Riker said, knowing how the big Klingon would react.

'With pleasure, Sir,' Worf rejoined, unleashing the Enterprise's entire arsenal in a rare show of total firepower.

Together, the Federation and Romulan ships pounded away at the djelimin ships until there was nothing left of them but superheated ruin and debris. Their last act was to send landing parties to the surface of the planet to come to the rescue of Lieutenant Atarina Dar and Victor Shaw.

Atarina and her commander considered each other as his landing party materialised in the shed that had housed the probes. Beside him a Federation away team appeared out of transporter shimmer as well.

'You seem well, Lieutenant,' Raiis said wryly. 'You are also out of uniform.'

-

Victor and Atarina, freshly clothed and accompanied by Chico, accompanied the commander and the Romulan and Federation away teams out into daylight and the smoking aftermath of a battle-zone. Standing together under guard were Captain Oanis and his would-be assassins.

'Captain Oanis,' the commander grated, 'I am sorely disappointed. You were destined for a far better future than this.'

As the arrest and future of the five were discussed, Atarina drew Victor away from the proceedings so that they could talk privately.

'I am told that returning to duty at this time might present undue risk, as would my returning home. Commander Raiis has placed me at the Federation captain's disposal. You will come with me. I will hear no foolishness from you about staying behind! There is no longer any need for you to remain.'

'And if I refuse?'

Her eyes blazed. 'Then I will cause you pain unlike any you have ever experienced, Victor Shaw! One way or another, you are coming with me.'


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

-

Captain Picard and commander Raiis were seated alone together in the Enterprise Ready Room.

'I'm not sure I understand you,' Raiis said. 'The dejelimen were able to kill two of your crew without being physically present to carry it out? How is this possible?'

'They were able to recreate themselves virtually using our holodeck,' Picard told him. 'The evidence thus far tells us only that there was only one.'

'How were they able to infiltrate your ship?' Raiis asked, concern for his far-less-protected old ship on his features.

'Our sensor logs indicate that we passed through some sort of energy tendril,' captain Picard told him. 'We're now searching through every computer function aboard this ship to discover whether any residual threat remains. So far it appears to have been a passing phenomenon, but I do not intend to let my guard down for one moment.'

'You were very gracious in allowing my Lieutenant Atarina Dar to remain on your ship,' Commander Raiis said. 'Things would have be come very difficult for her should she have returned to her duties.'

Picard nodded. 'The constant threat of assassination is not an easy thing to live with.'

'Oh, I have other motives entirely,' the commander said in a way which indicated that he was not entirely pleased with the situation.

'Such as . . .' captain Picard prompted suspiciously.

'Such as mating with an off-worlder,' the commander stated succinctly. 'I'm afraid that Mr Victor Shaw's life as he knew it was over the moment Atarina decided he was an ideal candidate. Romulan women can be very persuasive when they set their sites on something.' He huffed. 'She probably hasn't deigned to tell him yet.'

Captain Picard shook his head. 'I sometimes wonder if females are not a separate species from all of us. Would you care for a drink?'

The Romulan commander actually smiled. 'I would indeed.'

-

Data's positronic brain was absolutely, one-hundred per cent positive that there was nothing to be found of the djelimen programme which had invaded the ship and taken over the holodeck for a time. Which was why he didn't trust it. Nothing, he knew, could be positively certain.

'What is it, Data?' Geordi asked him.

'I believe I am experiencing a moment of doubt,' Data said, pleased with this revelation. 'I find that I am unable to trust my own senses, which are telling me that the djelimen are no longer able to influence the ship's computer systems.'

'Why would you doubt your own senses?' Geordi asked him. 'Aren't they working properly?'

'They are operating at peak efficiency,' Data told him. 'The problem is that they are one-hundred per cent positive of their findings, leaving no margin for error. This is in contradiction to several levels of my programming which dictate that absolute certainty is an impossibility.'

'Is it possible that you've become infected?' Geordi asked him, worried.

'I do not believe so,' Data replied. 'In fact, despite my uncertainty, I am certain that it is not I that am infected, but rather the ship, or rather, its computers. To venture a guess, I would say that our computers have been invaded by a sentient programme of extreme sophistication that is attempting to evade detection.'

Geordi frowned. 'I'm not sure I understand. Why do you think the programme is sentient?'

'You know the saying, "The Devil is in the details", Geordi? The fact that I am unable to locate sentience in the computer's programming is not proof that it is not there. Like the human mind, consciousness is not a quantifiable operation, but rather is a process within a process. Any attempt to locate it is futile because it is an abstract thing whose workings are not contingent upon locality. In other words, looking for it is futile because it does not wish to be found. Yet it is there, so the only way to grapple with it is for me to go into the computer and confront it directly.'

'What makes you think you'll find it?' Geordi asked him, not understanding.

'Simply put,' Data told him, 'it is something that can not be seen from the outside. But once inside, the means it uses to conceal itself, the computer, will no longer stand in the way. It will be a case of one conscious entity confronting another.'

'But Data, what if it attacks you?' Geordi asked him, concerned.

'You are forgetting a key thing, Geordi,' Data responded. 'The djelimen are primitive creatures whose intelligence is rudimentary at best. Their intelligence is something they have access to, that they have borrowed, but they themselves possess neither the speed nor the mental agility to overwhelm my neural net. I am confident that I can prevail. If not, I will merely withdraw, and we will erase and reload the computer's memory banks. Besides, Geordi, this is the only sure way we can discover what we are up against.'

Geordi sighed resignedly. 'That may be, Data, but I still don't like the idea. I mean, what if you're underestimating this thing? What if you find yourself up against something that's more than you bargained for?'

'If that turns out to be the case, then I will, to coin a phrase, "beat a hasty retreat".'

'I hope it turns out to be that simple,' Geordi muttered, unable to quell a pang of misgiving.

-

Will Riker and Deanna Troi entered Ten Forward, selected a window seat, ordered a meal, then sat quietly together, watching the planet slowly turn below them. A few moments later Atarina Dar and Victor Shaw entered the room, gave it an assessing once-over, then sat quietly together not far away.

'She's very pretty,' Deanna said with a smirk, noting how Will's eyes were involuntarily drawn.

'She took Worf down in five moves,' Riker said meaningly. 'I wouldn't want to tangle with her. Victor Shaw is a tough customer, too. None of us could get him off his feet, even though four of us tried to take him down just for the fun of it.'

'Fun?' Deanna queried ingenuously. 'Fun? I just saw Mr Worf in sickbay being tended to by Beverley for a bruised sternum. He was bragging about what a great fighter Atarina Dar is and how she fights like a Klingon warrior. He had this look in his eyes like . . . well . . . like the two of them sitting there. If that's a type of love, I swear I will never come to understand it.'

'Worf understands it,' Riker said.

'I know!' Deanna rejoined. 'I thought he must have been joking when he said that non-Klingon women are far too fragile for Klingon love-making, but now I have some idea of what he's talking about.'

'Soft and gentle lovemaking is not for everyone,' Riker smirked. 'Some people have absolutely no use for romance.'

Deanna shook her head. 'Well if it's not romance, then what is it?'

'Something else entirely,' Will told her, looking at the couple speculatively. 'I think.'

-

Captain Picard and Commander Raiis sipped brandy, not looking at each other, each consumed with implications, consequences, the known and the unforseen. At last, the commander said quietly, 'The pursuit of science leads to many a Pandora's Box. Our own scientists made a similar discovery, which led to a proposal of weaponisation, which led to a lot of soul-searching, which in the end led us to set aside the proposal for an unforseen time of desperation.' He sighed and placed his drink on Picard's desktop. 'It seems that time has come. Still . . . it is a terrible weapon that may lead to terrible consequences.'

'Our engineers have indicated that they will only go ahead with the construction of the device if so ordered,' captain Picard told him. 'They are well-aware of the possible consequences and will proceed only with the greatest reluctance. They tell me that there is no possibility of testing this thing . . . that when the process is begun there will be no stopping it.'

'And yet I see no alternative,' Raiis said glumly.

'Nor,' Picard seconded, 'do I.'

Commander Raiis raised his glass. 'To hoping this will not lead to evil times.'

-

Geordi and Data joined the engineering staff just as they finished drawing up a 3-D schematic of the new weapon.

'What is this?' Data asked in fascination as he stared at the model.

'That,' replied Geordi ruefully, 'is something I wish I didn't have any part in.'

'What possible source have you located for supplying the needed matter?' Data asked him.

'There are plenty of asteroids in the vicinity,' Geordi told him. 'A big one the size of a small planetoid should do it.'

'The underlying principle is not without a certain elegance,' Data said, 'but I can see no safe use or practical application for this device.'

'We're considering using it as a weapon against the djelimen,' Geordi told him.

'I see,' Data responded, clearly disturbed by the notion. 'You do realise that the kill zone may extend from the point of origin, wherever this device is set off, to infinity?'

'We're painfully aware of that possibility,' Geordi told him. 'We don't even want to build it unless we absolutely have to. Unfortunately,' he added, looking at the schematic like a blind man, 'we can't think of an alternative.'

-

'A new weapon?' Riker asked Picard later that evening as they were alone together for a consultation. 'What is it? What does it do?'

Captain Picard called up a 3-D representation. 'The device would be placed on a planetoid of significant mass, on the side facing the djelimen territory,' Jean-Luc told his first officer. 'Once activated, a chain-reaction will begin, converting the mass of the planetoid into a lopsided matter-energy burst, with the smallest particles rushing to one side and the larger being directed to the side facing the djelimen territory. The blast will be so powerful that the matter will be compressed into super-large, super-heavy particles, which in turn will be hurled in the direction of the djelimen territory. Unfortunately,' he sighed, 'the damage will be indiscriminate. The particles will theoretically carry on forever, killing everything in their path.'

'But . . . they'll disperse, won't they?' Riker asked, staring at the model with a sick expression. 'I mean, given the distances involved, won't the risk be minimal past a certain point?'

'That is the hope,' Picard told him, 'but every model which describes the process indicates otherwise.' He called up a table of formulas. 'In every scenario, the density of the blast-front increases exponentially.'

'How can that be?' Riker asked, frowning. 'For that to happen, more mass would have to be created along the way.'

'And that is exactly what is predicted will happen,' Picard told him.

'What exactly are we talking about here?' Riker demanded. 'A miniature Big Bang?'

'That is pretty much what the engineers are telling me,' Picard rejoined, 'that it will be a controlled, miniature Big Bang. At least, according to the numbers.'

Riker called up a stellar map and began walking around it. 'You know . . . if we got the angle just right . . . the blast would pass through the djelimen territory and out into intergalactic space. It would mean skirting around the djelimen territory to a point right about . . . here . . . setting the device on a planetoid and getting the hell out of there.'

Picard nodded. 'Have a closer look at the location you've just pinpointed, Number One.'

Riker stared and shook his head in astonishment. 'I'll be damned! What are the odds?'

-

'The answer is "no",' Victor Shaw said flatly as he and Atarina entered the Enterprise' ready room where the ship's senior staff and the Romulan commander Raiis awaited them. 'You are not going to blow up my planet. As you may already have guessed, a similar proposal was made by the alien beings who fled to that planet long before I arrived there. They constructed a device as a weapon of last resort, just as you're planning to do. In the end they decided the possible consequences were too great. They allowed themselves to become extinct rather than use it.'

'Such a device already exists,' Commander Raiis echoed in wonder. 'Surely you must see, Mr Shaw, that events once more have caused us to arrive at an inevitable conclusion? Some no doubt view this occurrence as an amazing coincidence, but I would remind all of you that the world of biology, as but one example, is teeming with similar experiences. On your home planet of Earth there was once a marsupial whose appearance parallelled that of the sabre-toothed cat. Conditions favoured this design, and so it appeared. In taxonomic terms this is referred to as an example of "convergence".

'It must also be remembered that the previous alien inhabitants are no more . . . that the djelimen annihilate sentient life-forms as they spread across the galaxy-'

'You think I haven't heard all this before?' Victor demanded. 'Much of the reasoning which leads to this type of thinking is based upon the notion that we have the right to survive. In the real world there is no such "right", any more than there is a "right" to become extinct, or to evolve, or to exist, or to not exist, or to live or die or think or get up in the morning or stay in bed all day. It's true that we want to survive, but it is not true that our survival is a right that is granted to us. Everything that lives dies, every species that existed or exists or will exist in the future either became extinct or will become extinct one day.

'The important thing, where the device is concerned, is what would happen if it was set off. The positive result, the _only_ positive result, would be that the Jelly Men would resemble Swiss cheese after they'd been bombarded with super-large, super-heavy particles of exotic matter. On the negative side of the scale, there's the following.' He began ticking off his fingers. 'My planet and every living thing on it would be incinerated. There is no guarantee that the blast will be contained and not send its payload of death in the direction of civilisations we haven't even made contact with. Any living thing that takes a hit from these super-large, super heavy particles will suffer catastrophic cell-damage, which in turn will lead to agonising death on an unimaginable scale. Even if the device works perfectly, and takes out the djelimen will little or no collateral damage, with the super-large, superheavy particles spewing out of our little corner of the galaxy into intergalactic space, we have absolutely no idea if there's any sort of traffic out there.

'In case none of you have considered the possibility, let me explain to you what will happen if even one of these particles was to cross paths with a ship travelling at warp speed, or faster if such technologies exist: no deflector system could turn aside one of these super-large, superheavy particles. Each particle would pass through a passing ship from stem to stern, even if it were shielded with heavy armour ten-thousand miles thick-'

'Whoa, I get the picture,' Geordi interrupted. Addressing all in the room, he said, 'What he's saying is, if even one particle like that was to pass through our engineering section and hit something critical, we'd all be dead before the onboard sensors could switch on the alarm system.'

'My predecessors also theorised a possible consequence they called "quantum flashback",' Victor continued.

Geordi shook his head. '"Quantum flashback"? What the heck is that?'

'It has to do with vectors and changes in directionality,' Victor told him. 'The short answer is that there's a blowback phenomenon that takes place when heavy particles collide with matter. The superheavy particles plough right through, dislodging protons and neutrons in a forward shotgun pattern. Those particles, in turn, collide with one another, and a few forty-five degree collisions later, and a percentage of those particles are coming straight back at you. And as for the superheavy particles, in theory they can do the same thing inside the pressure-wave that forms them. In theory the number would be very small, but as Mr La Forge just pointed out, even one can kill a starship. The odds are that a single super-large, superheavy particle could pass through a starship causing minimal damage if the ship was stationary, but travelling at warp speed the consequences would be downright nasty. It would pass through the deflector shield as though it wasn't there, punch a submicroscopic hole right through the ship, and cause a tiny chain-reaction each and every time it came in contact with matter, because every time an atom crossed its path, it would strike the nuclei and scatter the protons and neutrons. A living being that took a direct hit would die horribly, and shortly afterward a good percentage of a ship's crew would begin presenting signs of cancer of the everything, and of these most would be dead within two to four weeks.

'And there's lots more. Would you like to hear it?'

The room was silent for several long minutes as everyone present digested this information.

At last, captain Picard muttered, 'Well, so much for Occam's Razor.'

-

A sound came to Chico that caused the caracal's ears to perk up. It was the sound of a four-footed creature, a padded sound like his own. A hundred tiny clues told him that the creature was like himself. Of course, he just had to investigate.

The creature turned out to be smaller than himself, but with a longer tail. And it was orange. It followed the one named Data, who turned to it and said, 'Come along, Spot.'

But Spot's senses had alerted him to Chico's presence, and Spot was as curious about Chico as Chico was about Spot. So they approached each other and sniffed noses- a friendly greeting.

'Hello,' said Data to Chico. 'I have not seen you before. I must assume that you are lost. I will see if I can locate your owner.'

But before Data could do any such thing, Spot and Chico ran off together at a gallop.

Bemused at his cat's behaviour, Data said to himself, 'See Spot run.'

-

Spot led Chico to one of his favourite haunts- the Enterprise atrium. The atrium was part holodeck illusion of the great outdoors on the walls and ceiling, part indoor park, with artificial running stream, a little wooden bridge, some real plants and trees, real grass, and often there were little playmates in the form of children. Seeing various forms of these, Spot led Chico to them.

'It's Spot!' several types of bipedal children chorused.

'Look, it's that great big cat, Chico!' a few of them added. 'Let's go find some string for them to chase!'

For half an hour the atrium was a pandemonium of shrill little voices, running feet, dashing, darting, jumping and batting cats, interspersed with a few parents and caregivers trying in vain to quell a spate of spontaneous hysteria. Into this bewildering scene walked Data, who soon found himself being used as some sort of barrier that was expected to remain in one place. So he stood there and watched the proceedings with great interest.

It was then he noticed that Chico had stopped running and was standing stiffly in front of the far wall. His back was arched, long black ears laid back, and the fur along his back was bristling. And he was making a sound that Data's memory banks informed him was only made when danger was present. 'Perhaps something about the holographic wall has inadvertently triggered this response,' Data mused, and went to investigate.

As he drew near, Data saw instantly what had caused such a reaction from Chico. Without hesitation, he did something he'd done only rarely during his existence. He yelled. 'Clear the atrium! Everyone move toward the exits in an orderly fashion' He tapped his communicator badge. 'Data to Captain Picard! There is a djelimen entering the atrium via the holographs! I will attempt to keep it occupied! Meanwhile, I suggest you find a way to isolate the atrium holographs so that we may trap the djelimen that has invaded the ship!' To the last people leaving the atrium, he said, 'Will you please take my cat Spot and Chico the caracal with you? They will be in danger if they remain.'

Moments later, Data was alone and face-to-face with a djelimen as it fully emerged from the wall and began moving toward him.

-

'What's happening in there?' Will Riker demanded as he arrived at the atrium entrance which had a tech team, led by Geordi La Forge, working frantically at an open control panel.

'There's a djelimen trapped inside with Data!' Geordi told him as he worked. 'I'm just about to swap the guts of the holography computer with a running portable. Hopefully the djelimen won't even be able to tell what's happening.' He hooked up the memory and its power-supply in parallel, then disconnected it from the atrium holography generator. 'That's got it! The djelimen is now trapped inside the portable module. Let's open the door and see if Data's okay!'

The door opened. The atrium walls and ceiling, usually showing various extensions of the atrium proper into a virtual far distance, were blank.

It took a moment for the shock of the moment to set in.

Data was gone.

-

'How is this possible?' captain Picard demanded. He and his senior staff were seated in the Ready Room. The Romulan commander Raiis, Victor Shaw and Atarina Dar were also present. 'How is it that they were able to take Mr Data using a holographic projection?'

Geordi sighed. 'Remember how we were speculating that there might be a connexion between the djelimen and the Borg? I think this proves it, and I think I know how.

'The Borg are cyborgs, a fusion of living beings and technology. In the djelimen things have been taken a step further. I think they are literally a form of living technology, or else they're moving towards it.'

'Why do you say that?' Beverley Crusher asked him.

'Well, they seem to have taken an extra step by using our holograph technology,' Geordi told her. 'This is just a guess, but I think the next step in their evolution will be some sort of techno-being, or a living technology if you like that term better.'

'Would that not then make them a type of cyborg?' Worf asked him.

'No,' Geordi replied, 'because the djelimen are wholly organic.'

'Isn't that a contradiction in terms?' Deanna Troi asked him, frowning. 'I mean, if they're wholly organic, then how can they also be technological?'

'Oh, I do not like where this is going,' Will Riker enounced as realisation set in. 'You're talking something like sentient DNA . . . which would be like something along the lines of shape-shifters able to become beings or technology or both at the same time.' Turning to the captain while including Geordi, he said, 'If I understand Mr La Forge correctly, then these things could eventually have the ability to disappear into the ship, and then reappear, say as a humanoid, but armed to the teeth. Maybe shielded.'

'Exactly!' Geordi echoed. 'And they'd be able to use the ship's technology to replicate themselves. They'd be able to override all of the ship's systems. Even turn the ship against us.'

'Do you still think that setting off the device and sacrificing your planet and risking a number of lives is not a sensible option?' the Romulan commander asked Victor Shaw bluntly.

All eyes turned to the man who had confronted the ethics of this self-same situation before. After several prolonged minutes of agonised introspection he said quietly, 'The planet has no moons . . . but it does have a few orbiting asteroids. I want to see the device tested on one of them before I commit to anything.'

'Why didn't your predecessors do this?' captain Picard asked him, frowning.

'Arguing about it was the last thing they did just before they were destroyed,' Victor Shaw told him pointedly, and shrugged. 'At least this way we may get some answers which may help solve the ethical dilemma. Or not. Either way, we won't know unless we test the thing and find out for sure.

'If you do go ahead and test it, however,' he added meaningly, 'if I were you, I'd notify Starfleet and the Romulan High Command, and all your allies and next of kin. And . . . it would be a good idea to notify all of your enemies and explain the situation, because I can guarantee you that there will be no end of political fallout.'

'Is there no way to block super-massive, superheavy particles?' Atarina asked.

Dr Crusher caught the worry in the Romulan woman's mien and touched her arm in empathy. 'Our engineers think they've come up with a method of shielding that should protect the ship.'

'We've already tested it,' Geordi put in, the import of the two women's exchange lost on him. To Commander Raiis he said, 'Our shielding will protect your ship if you stay behind the Enterprise.'

'I don't suppose there's anything you can do to protect my planet?' Victor Shaw asked. 'No, don't try to answer that. I was being facetious. By the way, how are your efforts going with trying to retrieve your android friend?'

'We're working to isolate the holodeck,' Geordi told him. 'It's going to take a while, but we need it up and running on an internal power supply with a portable computer so that there's absolutely no access to the rest of the ship. We've also got to be able to shut it down at a moment's notice in case anything happens.'

'What are the odds of actually retrieving Data?' Riker asked, his concern showing plainly. 'Can you recreate whatever the djelimen did to him in order to somehow undo the process?'

Looking very uncomfortable, with all eyes on him, Geordi replied slowly, 'I'll be straight with you . . . we just don't know. There have been attempts in the pass to merge holographic technology with transporter technology, and holographic technology with replicator technology, but up until this point in time, every attempt has failed.

'In some ways this is a good thing, because there are all kinds of potential abuses out there just waiting to happen, like stealing transporter logs in order to produce replicas of people, or making living things just for fun. But in this case, we need to know how to do it in order to get Data back, and getting Data back can only be a good thing.

'The thing is, right now we don't have a clue as to how the djelmen pulled it off, and until we find out, our chances of undoing whatever they did are slim at best.'

'In other words,' commander Raiis put in, 'your challenge is to discover what the djelmen did to the android? How do you intend to do that? By sifting through the data contained in the memory logs, or by activating the programme and dealing with this virtual djelimen directly?'

'Unfortunately,' Geordi told him, 'it means activating the programme and going up against the djelimen inside it. And I have to remind you that the djelimen inside the programme is anything but virtual once it's activated. It has none of the usual holograph safety constraints programmed into it.'

'Well . . . can't you add them?' Deanna Troi asked.

'No,' Geordi replied, 'because we're not dealing with a programme in any way that we understand the term.'

'If it is not a programme,' Worf asked, not liking uncertainties when heading into a potential confrontation, 'then what is it?'

'It's . . . sort of a programme within a programme,' Geordi explained. 'It's like trying to deal with consciousness when you're confronted with the physical human brain. You see, consciousness isn't a static thing you can just take apart and examine-'

'The devil is literally in the details,' Captain Picard said meaningly, not for the first time, but added, 'and it seems that the only way we can deal with the details is to take the direct approach, and go in there. All we have to decide now is who goes into the holodeck and tries to retrieve Mr Data.'


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

'Ten seconds until device activation,' the computer said.

Atarina took Victor's hands and made him unclench his fists. They were sitting together in the Enterprise's Ten Forward. Through the window, the planet beneath them turned. Over the far side of the planet orbited the asteroid, and on the side of the asteroid that was away from the planet, the device prepared itself to begin a process of annihilation that, once initiated, couldn't be called back. 'Here we go,' Victor muttered.

'Nine seconds until device activation,' the computer said.

From their prison aboard the Romulan ship, Captain Oanis and the four would-be assassins followed the proceedings on a monitor with great interest.

'Eight seconds until device activation,' the computer said.

From their ship's position below the Federation ship Enterprise, the crew of the old Romulan warship watched the forward monitor with mixed feelings of hope and dread. The acetic old physician, Dr Nemed, watched with steely eyes, his mouth a hard line. He did not trust an untried technology whose potential for doing harm was an unanswered question.

'Seven seconds . . .'

'It's going to be all right,' Will Riker said to Deanna Troi, trying to sound convincing despite his own sense of misgiving. She tried to smile, but failed.

'Six seconds . . .'

'We are receiving urgent high-level messages from several diplomats who demand we abort the countdown,' Worf said. 'What should be our reply?'

'Five . . .'

'Activate shielding device!' Geordi snapped to his team. 'Divert all available power- NOW!'

'Four . . .'

'I forgot to call my son!' Beverley Crusher moaned.

'Three . . .'

'I need a drink. Quick!' a patron at the bar of Ten Forward snapped. 'And not that synthahol crap! This may be the last chance I get.'

'Two . . .'

'One . . .'

The image sent by a remote camera went white for so long that most assumed it had stopped transmitting. But by degrees, as its onboard computer readjusted to compensate for the searing brilliance that blinded, the image resolved, causing everyone to gasp involuntarily.

'Oh my god!' Deanna Troi blurted, watching in horror and burying herself in Will's arms, uncaring that anyone might be watching.

Captain Picard surged to his feet, shielding his eyes from the glare emanating from the forward viewing screen, stunned at what he was seeing. At the same instant the automatic alarm system began blaring. 'Geordi!' he snapped into the intercom, 'what the hell is happening?'

'This is not good,' Geordi muttered as the jerry-rigged heavy-particle deflector's readings began to fluctuate wildly. 'Reroute all available power!' he snapped. 'I don't care if you have to take life-support and every other system off-line to do it!'

'Geordi!' the captain persisted.

'We're taking one hell of a beating!' Geordi shouted over the din in Main Engineering. 'I'm diverting every last bit of power to the heavy-particle shield, including all backup power! If you don't hear from me soon, it'll be because the ship's been blown apart! Geordi out!'

At once the ship was plunged into darkness. At the same instant it began shaking violently. In the background an ominous sound was building-

'Good god!' the words were torn from Captain Picard's lips. 'Everyone hang on! There's a blast front coming-'

The deafening concussion seemed to emanate from the ship itself, from the floor, the walls, the ceiling. The ship bucked, wrenched and began spinning as the artificial gravity and inertial dampers failed, as did all power to the helm.

And then . . . all was still, the only sound the ringing of their own ears against the background of an ominous silence. After an interminable time the backup lights sputtered dimly, revealing a ship filled with acrid smoke, battered people floating in weightlessness trying to get their bearings, and damage and debris that seemed to be everywhere.

-

'Sir,' the young Romulan officer at tactical said to Dr Nemed, 'we remain undamaged. But the Federation ship . . .' he turned to the elderly physician, his expression almost a plea.

'Engage tractor beam!' Nemed snapped. 'Suit up an EVA team and get a power-coupling hooked up to the Federation ship! Beam all available work crews aboard her and set them to work sealing those hull breaches!'

'Sir, protocol expressly forbids-' a young officer protested.

'To hell with protocol!' Dr Nemed barked. 'People are dying and the enemy is coming! We will do what we must!'

'Aye, Sir,' the young officer said, and wondered that he felt no fear of the consequences of breaking rules he'd until now thought were written in stone.

-

It was several hours before the Enterprise was patched up enough to continue repairs on her own. In the meantime a vigil had begun at every window and viewport, waiting with dread anticipation to see what affect unleashing the device had had on the planet's surface. Atarina thought Victor looked ill as they stood aboard the bridge watching the forward viewing screen and waited for the affected side of the planet to come into view.

'Oh, no.' Though spoken quietly, the words sounded torn from Victor's soul. All land and water below was concealed by an impenetrable layer of what appeared to be thick cloud, but which a trained eye could tell was as much smoke and cooling steam. 'Is anything alive down there?'

'Not much,' La Forge told him, 'but our sensors are picking up some subsurface activity. There must be a lot of caves and tunnels down there. Here comes ground zero . . . huh . . . there's a structure still standing there. Must be built like a bunker.'

'It was a dam complex,' Victor told him. 'Can you filter out all the junk in the atmosphere and give us a look at the surface? There! That's it there, towards the lower left. What the hell happened to all the water?'

'It looks like all the water on the exposed land masses got evaporated by the heat,' Geordi told him. 'And now . . . this is going to get real ugly. All that vapour is condensing now and falling as rain. This should be a monsoon for the record books.'

'I want to go down there,' Victor said, his voice strangely empty-sounding. 'I have to see this for myself.'

'We will go with you, Mr Shaw,' captain Picard told him quietly. 'We're going to need to get a first-hand look at the damage the device has done. This destruction is far from what we were expecting.'

'_They _were wrong, too,' Victor said, almost to himself. 'My predecessors, I mean,' he told them, speaking up. 'They weren't certain what would happen, of course, but this . . .' he shrugged. 'It's entirely outside every model they created.'

'I find that I wish to accompany you,' Commander Raiis put in. 'In the meantime, my ship will study the effectiveness of the device. Dr Nemed is very thorough . . . he will go to great lengths to understand the implications of what has been set in motion.'

-

The away team materialised inside the heavily fortified control-room of a massive dam complex which overlooked a heavily shrouded mountain valley that had once been filled with water. Geordi and Dr Crusher immediately began taking readings of conditions outside. Atarina followed Victor to the front windows. Captain Picard, Will Riker and Commander Raiis went to stand before the door and peered through its window at what conditions awaited them outside. Deanna Troi began pushing her senses, trying to ascertain if anything was alive out there. Worf began checking over a control panel to see if he could bring the power on line.

'It sure seems to be cooling off fast out there,' Victor observed with a frown.

'It's the cloud-cover,' Geordi told him as he took readings. 'The sunlight's being blocked from the upper-atmosphere. Strange . . . I'm not reading any heavy-particle damage at all. It looks like the device did what it was supposed to do . . . only the amount of energy released was 'way off the scale! According to every computer model the radiation backflash should have been absorbed by the atmosphere. The blast must have been at least a hundred times more powerful than anyone predicted.'

'How long before we can go outside, Geordi?' the captain asked him.

'You can go out now, so long as you suit up,' the chief engineer told him. 'It's a hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit out there, and the humidity's so high it'll be like breathing pure water vapour. That, and it's raining so hard that you'd better stay under cover.'

'How long till things cool off?' Victor Shaw asked him.

'Things'll start getting cool towards midnight,' Geordi told him meaningly. 'Until the dust settles and the cloud disperses things are going to get mighty cold.'

Commander Raiis' communicator began giving off an electronic sound. He snapped it open. 'Your report, Dr Nemed.' He left the communicator on speaker so all could hear.

'I would prefer that you see this for yourself,' came the ascetic old doctor's dry voice. Something, his tone, perhaps, permeated the room with a sense of dread anticipation. 'Nemed out.'

Captain Picard saw his own dread mirrored in the grim features of the Romulan commander. 'It's going to be bad, isn't it,' he said quietly. It was a statement.

Commander Raiis was very still for a long moment, then nodded. 'I suggest that you prepare yourselves.'

-

Atarina found it a strange experience to visit her own ship as a guest. The crew showed little interest in the bystanders and went about their business in a manner that struck her as being self-absorbed, something she'd never noticed before. It made her feel detached from her surroundings, and she knew then that her life as she'd known it was over.

'I love these old ships,' Victor said as they made their way to the bridge, causing Commander Raiis to smile. 'Brings back a lot of memories. They're small and stuffy, cramped and temperamental, noisy, no privacy . . . but . . . I don't know, they just have something. Character, I guess. How long have you served on her?' This to the commander.

'Twenty-seven years,' the commander answered easily. 'Before that I captained destroyer-class escort ships.'

'Destroyer-class!' Captain Picard and Will Riker echoed simultaneously and exchanged a look. Captain Picard continued, 'We've only heard of them, but what we heard was pretty impressive. Whatever became of them?'

'The whole lot of them were mothballed,' Raiis griped. 'Too old, too inefficient, too big, too cumbersome . . . but tough. They were built to last, and they could take a pounding! They would hold together long after you thought you were done. I would wager that most of them could be returned to active duty, even after sitting unused all these years.' He shrugged. 'There is no standing up to the powers that be. Politics! Pah! There are times when I think that space is the last refuge of honest men.' He thought about that a moment, then amended, 'Well . . . dishonest, too. But at least one has a clearer sense of where the lines are drawn.'

As the commander spoke, Atarina realised why she had transferred to this ship and served willingly under his command: he never spoke down to his crew, never treated them as inferiors, never intimidated or threatened unless it was warranted. She caught Victor watching her. He was smiling in empathy, and in that instant she knew that he felt as she did.

The bridge, as they entered it in single file, was tiny compared to modern ships, and was not much larger in area than the Enterprise ready room. The setup was a mishmash of equipment mounted around the perimeter, centred by the command station, around which stood the senior bridge crew. The forward view-screen was small, a mere arm's span in width, but because of their close proximity it was large enough. Dr Nemed was waiting for them and gestured to something on the viewer that caused all present to freeze in disbelief.

'Why can't we see the stars?' Riker asked, a note bordering on panic in his voice.

'You will note,' Dr Nemed explained, 'that the glowing area before you is the blast-front. As you can see, it is still expanding, still moving outward in a cone-shape. Everything in its path is being annihilated- stars, planets, asteroids, spacecraft . . . everything. This expanding, glowing area is a nebula that is being formed from all that is being destroyed. We cannot explore it because the entire region has been superheated.' He shrugged. 'It will reach the edge of the galaxy in a week's time. After that it will continue on into intergalactic space. By our present calculations the blast front is gradually decreasing in force, and should dissipate altogether in about five years' time.' He looked suddenly very old and fragile. 'I hope this gamble was worth it.'

'I guess it's safe to say the djelimen have been destroyed,' Riker muttered. 'That has to be a positive, doesn't it?'

No one replied.

-

As Victor navigated the all-terrain vehicle across rugged terrain through the driving rain, Atarina studied the map laid out on the wide dashboard while comparing landmarks to her sensor readings. 'There! Turn right! The forest is gone but the road remains. There is an entrance to the underground two-hundred fifty-three metres from our position.'

Victor drove the vehicle up the remains of the steep road, switched on the floodlights which shone their light in all directions, and came to a stop. Pulling up his hood, he quickly got out of the vehicle, jumped to the ground, ran to the back and opened it, pulled out a fifty-pound bag, dumped its contents on the ground, placed the bag in a garbage container in the back which had been placed there for that purpose, slammed the back door shut, then got back in the driver's seat with alacrity. Within moments there came a predator's huff, telling his fellows that he scented meat. Atarina and Victor watched in silence as the deadly creatures made short work of the fifty-pounds of synthetically-grown meat.

'Sorry, guys,' Victor said as he began driving once more, 'that's all for now.'

It had been six weeks since the device had been set off with disastrous consequences that were still being studied. Victor's only consolation was that there was no end of help arriving to help the devastated planet get on its feet once more. In the face of so much destruction, it seemed a little thing to everyone to help restore a single planet to health.

'Commander Raiis said rhetorically in my presence that you would be a worthy replacement for Captain Oanis,' Atarina said suddenly.

Victor smiled. 'I had a feeling you were busting to tell me something.' Then he added seriously, 'He'll have to watch his back, now that Oanis has been found out. Oanis will have had a network of underlings. The commander probably has an idea of who some or most of them are, but ferreting them out is never easy . . . and it's almost impossible to be entirely rid of them.' He turned to Atarina. 'It's you I'm worried about. Assuming I take on the job, you'll be without rank, but it's a cinch that your unofficial full-time job will be to be the commander's eyes and ears-'

'Watch the road, please,' Atarina said demurely. 'I will give the commander your answer when we get back.'

'Oh, so suddenly you're psychic,' Victor said ingenuously.

'I would have to be, were you not so transparent. But do not worry. You are only transparent to me.'

'Gee, thanks,' Victor muttered. 'I think.'

-

Deanna Troi awoke from a nightmare in a cold sweat, heart pounding. Getting up, she went to the window and stared out into space, to a region where a reddish glow was all that remained of stars, planets, everything.

'What is it?' Will Riker asked her.

'Something is wrong,' she told him. 'I can feel it.'

He rose to take her in his arms. 'Are you sure it's not just a nightmare?'

'It's coming from out there,' she said, indicating the blasted region of space.

'Out there?' he echoed in disbelief, frowning. 'Deanna, that's not possible. There's nothing alive out there.'

'Will, I'm telling you there is!' she snapped, holding his gaze. 'It's something malevolent, something evil.' She turned to face the glowing region of space. 'The device hasn't stopped the djelimen. They're still out there.'

He shook his head. 'How can that be? The blast destroyed everything.'

'It's what they wanted!' she told him. 'They wanted us to use the device on them. They needed it to complete their evolution.'

'Oh my good god,' he muttered and began getting dressed. 'Riker to Mr La Forge!'

After a long moment a sleep-muzzy voice answered, 'La Forge here. What time is it?'

'Meet me on the bridge ASAP,' Riker told him. Turning to Deanna, he said, 'Get the rest of the senior staff up and on the bridge.' He sighed, resignedly. 'They're not going to like what they hear.'

-

-Captain's Log: Supplemental-

"At this hour, I am facing a region of space that has become forever darkened. Our new weapon has blown out the stars like candles on a child's birthday-cake. And as though in answer to some dark invocation, that black region of space, once so full of life and civilisations, is become home to a vast, malevolent consciousness that never sleeps.

"Our one consolation at this hour is that the djelimen collective, whatever it has become, is at this time formless and therefore impotent to reach out and harm us. But some dark day, far in the future, that will change, and the djeliman menace will emerge once more.

"Humanity, as we know it today, will be long gone by then, but it is hoped that our descendents will carry with them some remembrance of the djelimen and will have evolved some type of strategy to deal with whatever it or they will have become.

"In the meantime we have left ourselves with an angst-filled legacy- that of wondering if we could have acted differently, in the face of knowing that the answer will come long after we and our present civilisation are so much interstellar dust.

"Captain's log: out."

Here ends Star Trek- The Jelly Men


End file.
